The Primrose
Welcome, pale primrose! starting up between
Dead matted leaves of ash and oak that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through,
'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green;
How much thy presence beautifies the ground!
How sweet thy modest unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side
And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found,
The schoolboy roams enchantedly along,
Plucking the fairest with a rude delight:
While the meek shepherd stops his simple song,
To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight;
O'erjoyed to see the flowers that truly bring
The welcome news of sweet returning spring.
poem by John Clare
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Spring Song III
HERE'S the Spring-time, Sweet!
Earth's green gown is new,
Lambs begin to bleat,
Doves begin to coo,
Birds begin to woo
In the wood and lane;
Sweet, the tale is true
Spring is here again!
I have been discreet
All the winter through;
Now, before your feet,
Blossoms let me strew.
Flowers, as yet, are few;
Will my lady deign
Take this flower or two?
Spring is here again
Make the year complete,
Give the Spring her due!
All the flowers entreat,
All the song-birds sue.
'Twixt the green and blue
Let Love wake and reign,
Let me worship you--
Spring is here again!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Way Of The Wood
WHERE baby oaks play in the breeze
Among wood-sorrel and fringed fern,
Through the green garments of the trees
The quivering shafts of sunlight burn,
And all along the wet green ride
The dripping hazel-boughs between,
The spotted orchis, stiff with pride,
Stands guard before the eglantine.
Sweet chestnuts droop their long, sharp leaves
By knotted tree roots, mossed and brown,
Round which the honeysuckle weaves
Its scented golden wild-wood crown.
O wood, last year you saw us meet,
For her your leaves and buds were gay,
Your moss spread velvet for her feet.
Your flowers upon her bosom lay.
This year you wear your raiment bright,
As fair as ever yet you wore.
And, none the less, the world's delight
Walks in your ways no more, no more.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Bring Flowers
Bring flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd;
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
Their breath floats out on the southern gale,
And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose,
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.
Bring flowers to strew in the conqueror's path-
He hath shaken thrones with his stormy wrath!
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crush'd in his chariot's track,
The turf looks red where he won the day-
Bring flowers to die in the conqueror's way!
Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell,
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell;
Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye;
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,
And a dream of his youth-bring him flowers, wild flowers!
Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear!
They were born to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth,
Her place is now by another's side-
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride!
Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!
For this through its leaves hath the white-rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nurs'd.
Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are love's last gift-bring ye flowers, pale flowers!
Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer,
They are nature's offering, their place is there!
They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part,
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,
They break forth in glory-bring flowers, bright flowers!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Behold, My Love, How Green the Groves
Behold, my love, how green the groves,
The primrose banks how fair;
The balmy gales awake the flowers,
And wave thy flowing hair.
The lav’rock shuns the palace gay,
And o’er the cottage sings:
For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween,
To Shepherds as to Kings.
Let minstrels sweep the skilfu’ string,
In lordly lighted ha’:
The Shepherd stops his simple reed,
Blythe in the birken shaw.
The Princely revel may survey
Our rustic dance wi’ scorn;
But are their hearts as light as ours,
Beneath the milk-white thorn!
The shepherd, in the flowery glen;
In shepherd’s phrase, will woo:
The courtier tells a finer tale,
But is his heart as true!
These wild-wood flowers I’ve pu’d, to deck
That spotless breast o’ thine:
The courtiers’ gems may witness love,
But, ’tis na love like mine.
poem by Robert Burns
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In The Shade Of The Green Wood
In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.
In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.
In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.
poem by Andrew Blakemore
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In Sanctuary
THE young Spring air was strong like wine,
The sky reflected in your eyes
Was of a blue as deep-divine
As ever glowed in southern skies.
We passed from out the sunny lane
Into the green wood's shadowing;
And, sudden, all Love's words seemed vain
In that calm temple of the Spring.
Our god hears fair and tuneful words,
And splendid flowers his altars bear;
With choric song of leaves and birds,
Another god was worshipped there.
Silent, we passed the woodland, through
The coloured maze that Springtime weaves--
The light leaves dancing to the blue,
The sunlight dancing to the leaves;
I could not speak. I touched your hand
At the green arch that ends the wood:
'Ah--if she should not understand!'
Ah--if you had not understood!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Chains Invisible
THE lilies in my garden grow,
Wide meadows ring my garden round,
In that green copse wild violets blow,
And pale, frail cuckoo flowers are found.
For all you see and all you hear,
The city might be miles away,
And yet you feel the city near
Through all the quiet of the day.
Sweet smells the earth--wet with sweet rain--
Sweet lilac waves in moonlight pale,
And from the wood beyond the lane
I hear the hidden nightingale.
Though field and wood about me lie,
Hushed soft in dew and deep delight,
Yet can I hear the city's sigh
Through all the silence of the night.
For me the skylark builds and sings,
For me the vine her garland weaves;
The swallow folds her glossy wings
To build beneath my cottage eaves.
But I can feel the giant near,
Can hear his slaves by daylight weep,
And when at last the night is here,
I hear him moaning in his sleep.
Oh! for a little space of ground,
Though not a flower should make it gay,
Where miles of meadows wrapped me round,
And leagues and leagues of silence lay.
Oh! for a wind-lashed, treeless down,
A black night and a rising sea,
And never a thought of London town,
To steal the world's delight from me.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Through The Wood
THROUGH the wood, the green wood, the wet wood, the light wood,
Love and I went maying a thousand lives ago;
Shafts of golden sunlight had made a golden bright wood
In my heart reflected, because I loved you so.
Through the wood, the chill wood, the brown wood, the bare wood,
I alone went lonely no later than last year,
What had thinned the branches, and wrecked my dear and fair wood,
Killed the pale wild roses and left the rose-thorns sere?
Through the wood, the dead wood, the sad wood, the lone wood,
Winds of winter shiver through lichens old and grey,
You ride past forgetting the wood that was our own wood
All our own--and withered as ever a flower of May.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Wood of Flowers
I went to the Wood of Flowers
(No one was with me):
I was there alone for hours.
I was happy as could be
In the Wood of Flowers.
There was grass on the ground,
There were buds on the tree,
And the wind had a sound
Of such gaiety,
That I was as happy
As happy could be,
In the Wood of Flowers.
poem by James Stephens
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My Four Seasons
I gaze out through my window to the colours of the leaves,
Reds and browns and yellows floating like fairies from the trees.
I follow the as they burst alive and dance among the breeze,
And my smile is echoed effortlessly in the colours of the leaves.
I peer out through my curtains to the snow upon the ground,
Dreaming of the diamonds drowsily fluttering from the clouds,
Strewn across the hedgerows and the fields and all around,
The snow lies peacefully sleeping, a jewel upon the ground.
And look! - all of a sudden grow the bluebells in the wood!
Swaying happily to and fro, just like they always should.
And as the spring awakens, rusty from the flood,
The sun begins to shine upon the bluebells in the wood.
At last, through my curtains I see the flowers of July,
Their beauty almost mirrored in the sunshine in the sky,
And I see the tuplips grinning as a bright blue butterfly
Lands upon the petals of the flowers in July.
poem by Twilight Whispers
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Sonnet VIII. To Spring
AGAIN the wood and long-withdrawing vale
In many a tint of tender green are drest,
Where the young leaves, unfolding, scarce conceal
Beneath their early shade, the half-form'd nest
Of finch or woodlark; and the primrose pale,
And lavish cowslip, wildly scatter'd round,
Give their sweet spirits to the sighing gale.
Ah! season of delight!--could aught be found
To soothe awhile the tortured bosom's pain,
Of sorrow's rankling shaft to cure the wound,
And bring life's first delusions once again,
'Twere surely met in thee!--thy prospect fair,
Thy sounds of harmony, thy balmy air,
Have power to cure all sadness--but despair.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Forest Reverie
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!
poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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The Measure of Beauty
Give Beauty all her right,
She's not to one form tied;
Each shape yields fair delight,
Where her perfections bide:
Helen, I grant, might pleasing be,
And Ros'mond was as sweet as she.
Some the quick eye commends,
Some swelling lips and red;
Pale looks have many friends,
Through sacred sweetness bred:
Meadows have flowers that pleasure move,
Though roses are the flowers of love.
Free beauty is not bound
To one unmoved clime;
She visits every ground
And favours every time.
Let the old loves with mine compare,
My sovereign is as sweet as fair.
poem by Thomas Campion
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Welcome To Our Canadian Spring
We welcome thy coming, bright, sunny Spring,
To this snow-clad land of ours,
For sunshine and music surround thy steps,
Thy pathway is strewn with flowers;
And vainly stern Winter, with brow of gloom,
Attempted for awhile
To check thy coming—he had to bow
To the might of thy sunny smile.
A touch of thy wand, and our streams and lakes
Are freed from his tyrant sway,
And their clear blue depths in ripples of gold
Reflect back the sun’s bright ray;
Whilst e’en the rude rocks that their waters fret
Put on mosses green and bright,
And silent, deep homage render up now,
Sweet Spring, to thy magic might.
And what words could tell half the wond’rous change
Thou mak’st in our forest bowers,
Replacing the snow with soft velvet sward,
Cold crystals with glowing flowers;
Clothing the leafless, unsightly trees
In rich garb of satin sheen,
And robing the meadows and woodlands wide
In thine own soft tender green.
And the insect life that thy warm breath wakes
Now people earth and air;
And the carolling birds have come back to dwell
In the charms of thy presence fair.
Need we wonder all hearts with joyous beat
Watch the changes thou dost bring,
And, with smiles of gladness, welcome thee
To our land, bright, sunny Spring?
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Mayflowers
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars,
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!
What had she in those dreary hours,
Within her ice-rimmed bay,
In common with the wild-wood flowers,
The first sweet smiles of May?
Yet, 'God be praised!' the Pilgrim said,
Who saw the blossoms peer
Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,
'Behold our Mayflower here!'
'God wills it: here our rest shall be,
Our years of wandering o'er;
For us the Mayflower of the sea
Shall spread her sails no more.'
O sacred flowers of faith and hope,
As sweetly now as then
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope,
In many a pine-dark glen.
Behind the sea-wall's rugged length,
Unchanged, your leaves unfold,
Like love behind the manly strength
Of the brave hearts of old.
So live the fathers in their sons,
Their sturdy faith be ours,
And ours the love that overruns
Its rocky strength with flowers!
The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day
Its shadow round us draws;
The Mayflower of his stormy bay,
Our Freedom's struggling cause.
But warmer suns erelong shall bring
To life the frozen sod;
And through dead leaves of hope shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Parting
The chestnut steed stood by the gate
His noble master's will to wait,
The woody park so green and bright
Was glowing in the morning light,
The young leaves of the aspen trees
Were dancing in the morning breeze.
The palace door was open wide,
Its lord was standing there,
And his sweet lady by his side
With soft dark eyes and raven hair.
He smiling took her wary hand
And said, 'No longer here I stand;
My charger shakes his flowing mane
And calls me with impatient neigh.
Adieu then till we meet again,
Sweet love, I must no longer stay.'
'You must not go so soon,' she said,
'I will not say farewell.
The sun has not dispelled the shade
In yonder dewy dell;
Dark shadows of gigantic length
Are sleeping on the lawn;
And scarcely have the birds begun
To hail the summer morn;
Then stay with me a little while,'
She said with soft and sunny smile.
He smiled again and did not speak,
But lightly kissed her rosy cheek,
And fondly clasped her in his arms,
Then vaulted on his steed.
And down the park's smooth winding road
He urged its flying speed.
Still by the door his lady stood
And watched his rapid flight,
Until he came to a distant wood
That hid him from her sight.
But ere he vanished from her view
He waved to her a last adieu,
Then onward hastily he steered
And in the forest disappeared.
The lady smiled a pensive smile
And heaved a gently sigh,
But her cheek was all unblanched the while
And tearless was her eye.
'A thousand lovely flowers,' she said,
'Are smiling on the plain.
And ere one half of them are dead,
My lord will come again.
The leaves are waving fresh and green
On every stately tree,
And long before they die away
He will return to me!' --
Alas! Fair lady, say not so;
Thou canst not tell the weight of woe
That lies in store for thee.
Those flowers will fade, those leaves will fall,
Winter will darken yonder hall;
Sweet spring will smile o'er hill and plain
And trees and flowers will bloom again,
And years will still keep rolling on,
But thy beloved lord is gone.
His absence thou shalt deeply mourn,
And never smile on his return.
poem by Anne Brontë
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Dirge
PLACE this bunch of mignonette
In her cold, dead hand;
When the golden sun is set,
Where the poplars stand,
Bury her from sun and day,
Lay my little love away
From my sight.
She was like a modest flower
Blown in sunny June,
Warm as sun at noon's high hour,
Chaster than the moon.
Ah, her day was brief and bright,
Earth has lost a star of light;
She is dead.
Softly breathe her name to me,—
Ah, I loved her so.
Gentle let your tribute be;
None may better know
Her true worth than I who weep
O'er her as she lies asleep —
Soft asleep.
Lay these lilies on her breast,
They are not more white
Than the soul of her, at rest
'Neath their petals bright.
Chant your aves soft and low,
Solemn be your tread and slow, —
She is dead.
Lay her here beneath the grass,
Cool and green and sweet,
Where the gentle brook may pass
Crooning at her feet.
Nature's bards shall come and sing,
And the fairest flowers shall spring
Where she lies.
Safe above the water's swirl,
She has crossed the bar;
Earth has lost a precious pearl,
Heaven has gained a star,
That shall ever sing and shine,
Till it quells this grief of mine
For my love.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play-
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood-
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.
Over the river, and through the wood-
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurra for the pumpkin pie!
poem by Lydia Maria Francis Child
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In Spring
See how the trees and the osiers lithe
Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe,
The meadows have donned their cape of flowers,
The air is soft with the sweet May showers,
And the birds make melody:
But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul,
Cometh no more for you or for me.
The lazy hum of the busy bees
Murmureth through the almond trees;
The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head,
The primrose peeps from a mossy bed,
And the violets scent the lane.
But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul,
For you and for me bloom never again.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Bellinglise
Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds
The head of a green valley that I know,
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau.
Through shady groves and fields of unmown grass,
It was my joy to come at dusk and see,
Filling a little pond's untroubled glass,
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry.
Oh, should I fall to-morrow, lay me here,
That o'er my tomb, with each reviving year,
Wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
And lovers by that unrecorded place,
Passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
Close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon.
II
Here, where in happier times the huntsman's horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer eves,
Now serried cannon thunder night and morn,
Tearing with iron the greenwood's tender leaves.
Yet has sweet Spring no particle withdrawn
Of her old bounty; still the song-birds hail,
Even through our fusillade, delightful Dawn;
Even in our wire bloom lilies of the vale.
You who love flowers, take these; their fragile bells
Have trembled with the shock of volleyed shells,
And in black nights when stealthy foes advance
They have been lit by the pale rockets' glow
That o'er scarred fields and ancient towns laid low
Trace in white fire the brave frontiers of France.
poem by Alan Seeger
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