Poems (Hinxman)/The Sigh of a Sick Mind

by Emmeline Hinxman

THE SIGH OF A SICK MIND.

Waters, full-foliaged trees, and summer wind,
 Around this weary head flow, wave, and play;
Do what ye can without, O, might ye find
 Into the wearier heart your healing way!

For of its own due comforts doth it lie
 Forsaken; Hope, its verdant tree, is dead;
Pleasure, within her mournful banks, is dry;
 The buoyant breeze of Energy has fled.

Time was there, summer spirits, when I thought
 No fear or trouble long could vex the breast,
If to the medicine of your presence brought,
 There to be wooed and whispered into rest.

So were mine healed of yore: upon the grass,
 Speckled with sunshine and with shade, I lay;
I shut mine eyes, and heard the soft winds pass,
 And with them seemed my cares to float away.

These were chance troubles, waking from without,
 Therefore might outward influence give them ease;
But 'the self-sown distress, the inborn doubt,
 Ye gentle powers, how shall ye reach to these?

Ye cannot, O ye cannot! deeper springs
 Than yours must flow to bathe this sickly mind;
A Breeze must touch it, of more potent wings,
 Ere in your haunts the ancient joys I find.