Nehemiah's Night Ride
Nehemiah's Night Ride
Original Text
The Collected Sonnets of Charles (Tennyson) Turner. Ed. F. B. Pinion and M. Pinion (London: MacMillan Press, 1988) : 109.
1When Nehemiah rode into the dark,
2And stones of ruin cumbered his advance,
3And old localities were hard to mark,
4Methinks he spent some moments in a trance
5Of sounds from past and future -- Abraham's foot
6With Isaac's on Moriah; then the sigh
7Of Moses, beyond Jordan doomed to die,
8So near the soil wherein his heart had root:
9'Ay!' thought he, 'and my own fond suit was met
10By earthly and by heavenly sympathy!'
11Then came sweet tones from far Gennesaret,
12A plash, as from the casting of a net,
13The noise as of a Cross grounded and set
14Hard by him, and a loud and lonely cry!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme
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