Public-domain ebook
Verses
by Violet Jacob
Language: en4,506 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #78110.
About this book
Verses is a lyrical anthology that opens with a solemn address to a “pale‑faced chief,” immediately setting a tone of reverent contemplation. The first poem weaves together images of graves, mist‑entangled brakes and a yearning ascent into “the swimming light,” while subsequent pieces shift to intimate serenades to roses, jessamine and convolvulus, each offering a tender message of love. The collection proceeds through a series of varied scenes, a shadowed cypress, a bustling mill‑house, a solitary brook, and a restless sea, each rendered in dense, rhythmic language that blends natural description with philosophical musings. The opening material therefore presents a mosaic of meditations on mortality, nature, and desire, all framed within a series of short, titled poems that invite the reader to linger on each vivid tableau.
The voice is unmistakably Romantic, echoing the lyrical intensity of early‑nineteenth‑century Scottish poets. Jacob Violet’s diction is ornate yet accessible, employing frequent apostrophes, archaic spellings and a cadence that recalls the musicality of Burns and Wordsworth. Readers who enjoy richly textured verse, especially those drawn to nature‑infused meditation and the interplay of mythic and personal longing, will find this collection rewarding. Its meditative pace and evocative imagery also appeal to lovers of lyrical poetry who appreciate a historic, Scottish‑flavoured perspective on universal themes.
The opening · free to read
The Shadow
What soul has swept your branches, cypress-tree, That you should point so high; That you, whose root among the graves may be, Look ever to the sky?
Dark warden of the long-untended tomb Seen o’er some mouldering wall, Or set where fountained gardens are abloom And roses blush and fall.
Scarcely the wind is voiceful as it sways Your column, dusk, austere; Scarcely the evening breeze that round you plays Brings music to the ear.
Your earth-bound foot mortality retains Imprisoned in the sod, Your earth-freed spirit to that ether strains Which is the breath of God.
The light o’er southern vineyards dying down Smiles on the landscape still, And lays the lengthening shadow of your crown On many a Tuscan hill.
And, nearer home, where memory’s deathless sun Enwraps some tear-sown mound, Your shade, at day’s decline, O silent one, Slants eastward on the ground.
By tomb or pleasance, convent-girdled height, In countries far or near, You bear a message from eternal light To us whose souls are here.
O silent witness! dark where yonder sky In saffron splendour burns, ’Tis but the shadow that on earth must lie, The substance heavenward turns.
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