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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from The New Day (1890): Sonnet XXXII: ‘The thousand volumes of poetic lore’

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Thomas Gordon Hake (1809–1895)

Extracts from The New Day (1890): Sonnet XXXII: ‘The thousand volumes of poetic lore’

THE THOUSAND volumes of poetic lore

By turns have fortunes and misfortunes made;

One day these piles shall meet the eye no more,

And in their own still honoured dust be laid.

Great work leaves only greater to be done.

New goals are straight ahead; then onward press,—

On Nature’s open course the gauntlet run;

She basks in glory at a new success.

The poetry of old is built on dream—

A dream of beauty never coming true!—

But Science shadows forth the nobler theme

Of wondrous Nature; be it sung by you!

Science and Nature, waiting hand in hand,

Now on the threshold of the New Day stand.