Westward on the High-Hilled Plains
Westward on the high-hilled plains
Where for me the world began,
Still, I think, in newer veins
Frets the changeless blood of man.
Now that other lads than I
Strip to bathe on Severn shore,
They, no help, for all they try,
Tread the mill I trod before.
There, when hueless is the west
And the darkness hushes wide,
Where the lad lies down to rest
Stands the troubled dream beside.
There, on thoughts that once were mine,
Day looks down the eastern steep,
And the youth at morning shine
Makes the vow he will not keep.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Youth
Mood of youth,
Mood of youth,
Eagle-like must seek the blue,
Dauntlessly its course pursue,
All the mountain-heights must view.
Blood of youth,
Blood of youth,
Steam-like puts full-speed to sea,
E'en though storm and ice there be,
Makes its way and romps in glee.
Dream of youth,
Dream of youth,
Rogue-like stealing sets its snare
In the maiden's morning-prayer;
All the springtime, fragrant, glowing,
In its airy waves is flowing.
Joy of youth,
Joy of youth,
Waterfall-like foams in truth,
Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing,
Even while to death 't is dashing.
Joy of youth,
Dream of youth,
Blood of youth,
Mood of youth,
Clothe the world with colors golden,
Singing songs that never olden.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
America
I love thine inland seas,
Thy groves of giant trees,
Thy rolling plains;
Thy rivers' mighty sweep,
Thy mystic canyons deep,
Thy mountains wild and steep,
All thy domains;
Thy silver Eastern strands,
Thy Golden Gate that stands
Wide to the West;
Thy flowery Southland fair,
Thy sweet and crystal air, --
O land beyond compare,
Thee I love best!
Additional verses for the
National Hymn,
March, 1906.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Winter Evening
To-night the very horses springing by
Toss gold from whitened nostrils. In a dream
The streets that narrow to the westward gleam
Like rows of golden palaces; and high
From all the crowded chimneys tower and die
A thousand aureoles. Down in the west
The brimming plains beneath the sunset rest,
One burning sea of gold. Soon, soon shall fly
The glorious vision, and the hours shall feel
A mightier master; soon from height to height,
With silence and the sharp unpitying stars,
Stern creeping frosts, and winds that touch like steel,
Out of the depth beyond the eastern bars,
Glittering and still shall come the awful night.
poem by Archibald Lampman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Is My Team Ploughing
"Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"
Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.
"Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"
Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.
"Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?"
Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep,
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
"Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?"
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Republic And Motherland
(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak)
Up the vast harbor with the morning sun
The ship swept in from sea;
Gigantic towers arose, the night was done,
And--there stood Liberty.
Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand,
The dawn in her proud eyes,
Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land,
Silent, hailing the skies;
Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest
Our seamen sought of old,
The dream that lured the nations through the West,
The city of sunset gold.
Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul
Shook out one flag like fire;
But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal,
Westward, the vast desire.
Westward and ever westward ran the call,
They followed the pilgrim sun,
Seeking that land which should enfold them all,
And weld all hearts in one.
Here on this mightier continent apart,
Here on these rolling plains,
Swells the first throb of that immortal heart,
The pulse of those huge veins.
Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest,
And neither hear nor see
The brood of gods at that gigantic breast,
The conquering race to be.
Chosen from many--for no sluggard soul
Confronts that night of stars--
The trumpets of the last Republic roll
Far off, an end to wars;
An end, an end to that wild blood-red age,
That made and keeps us blind;
A mightier realm shall be her heritage,
The kingdom of mankind.
Chosen from many nations, and made one;
But first, O Mother, from thee,
When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun,
Thy Mayflower crossed the sea.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Welsh Marches
High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.
The flag of morn in conqueror's state
Enters at the English gate:
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.
Ages since the vanquished bled
Round my mother's marriage-bed;
There the ravens feasted far
About the open house of war:
When Severn down to Buildwas ran
Coloured with the death of man,
Couched upon her brother's grave
That Saxon got me on the slave.
The sound of fight is silent long
That began the ancient wrong;
Long the voice of tears is still
That wept of old the endless ill.
In my heart it has not died,
The war that sleeps on Severn side;
They cease not fighting, east and west,
On the marches of my breat.
Here the truceless armies yet
Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;
They kill and kill and never die;
And I think that each is I.
None will part us, none undo
The knot that makes one flesh of two,
Sick with hatred, sick with pain,
Strangling-- When shall we be slain?
When shall I be dead and rid
Of the wrong my father did?
How long, how long, till spade and hearse
Puts to sleep my mother's curse?
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Go West
The sun dances on the horizon
With the morning wind,
Up, to rise alive
And go west, once again.
Why each day
Does the sun go west?
Perhaps with age
It has found which way is best.
Or, then again
Maybe it's just luck to go that way,
Over and over
Day upon day.
No matter the reason
I must confess,
Of the way in which it goes
I am most sincerely jealous.
For I take to heart
And put to the test,
Those wise words of Horace Greeley:
' Go West young man, go West! '
West. Where the souls of mountain-men are born
And the beauty of nature yet thrives;
Where liberty, freedom, and eagles, soar
And the spirit of the wild still speaks to human lives.
Every time able am I
It is precisely where I desire to go,
For westward is the way
My own free-spirit beckoned does flow.
I come alive out there
And always shall,
Engulfed in the blazing west
Where of it all, I never get my fill.
So burn on westward sun
Burn on I loudly say!
Burn ever jubilant onward
Along your own wonder-filled western way.
In spirit undying
I am with you...
Toward that fine day when
Westward, there I go too.
poem by Smoky Hoss
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As Through the Wild Green Hills of Wyre
As through the wild green hills of Wyre
The train ran, changing sky and shire,
And far behind, a fading crest,
Low in the forsaken west
Sank the high-reared head of Clee,
My hand lay empty on my knee.
Aching on my knee it lay:
That morning half a shire away
So many an honest fellow's fist
Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.
Hand, said I, since now we part
From fields and men we know by heart,
For strangers' faces, strangers' lands,--
Hand, you have held true fellows' hands.
Be clean then; rot before you do
A thing they'll not believe of you.
You and I must keep from shame
In London streets the Shropshire name;
On banks of Thames they must not say
Severn breeds worse men than they;
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Raising Steam
Over high plains, through the snow...
Roll those tracks out, dont you know
Im raising steam.
Thin vein creeping; hot blood flow...
Spill a little where the new towns grow.
I got my whole life hanging in a sack,
Heading out into that wide world wide.
You got your locomotive sitting on your track
And I dont care which way I ride.
I may not be coming back.
Left a lady with a heart
All in pieces come apart
Raising steam.
That engine up front must
Have a heart big enough for the both of us.
Riding shotgun on the sunset, stare it in the eye,
Rocking on my heels out to the west.
Funny how the whole world, historically,
Feels the urge to chase the sun to rest.
We may not be coming back.
Let me be your engineer...
Have you smiling ear to ear
Raising steam.
And will you tell me how it feels
When youre up and rolling on your driving wheels?
I got my whole life hanging in a sack,
Heading out into that wide world wide.
Ill be your locomotive blowing off its stack
And I dont care which way I ride.
I may not be coming back.
Raising steam.
song performed by by Jethro Tull
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Lads in Their Hundreds
The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.
There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.
I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.
But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To A Noble Friend In His Sickness
Untimely Feaver, rude insulting guest,
How didst thou with such unharmonious heat
Dare to distune his well-composed rest;
Whose heart so just and noble stroaks did beat?
What if his Youth and Spirits well may bear
More thick assaults, and stronger siege then this?
We measure not his courage, but our fear:
Not what our selves, but what the Times may miss.
Had not that blood, which thrice his veins did yield,
Been better treasur'd for some glorious day:
At farthest West to paint the liquid field,
And with new Worlds his Masters love to pay?
But let those thoughts, sweet Lord, repose a while,
Tend only now thy vigour to regain;
And pardon these poor Rimes, that would beguile
With mine own grief, some portion of thy pain.
poem by Henry Wotton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dawn To Dusk
The eastern sky
Suffused with light.
New risen sun is climbing high.
Erasing shadows of the night.
From east to west.
The normal way.
The sun pursues his daily quest.
In the same way every day
As he has done
Since time began.
Our days are measured by the sun.
Whose rule applies to every man.
When morning breaks.
The sun will rise
And take the route he always takes
From east to west across the sky.
At journeys end.
The sun will set.
And shadows of the night descend.
An all embracing coverlet.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Plains
WIDE are the plains—the plains that stretch to the west
An ocean of trackless waste, untrodden and rude,
Where an Austral sun flings fire on earth’s bare breast,
Brazen skies o’erhanging a treeless solitude.
Wild are the plains—the plains that shimmer and surge,
Leagues of billowy grass like an angry sea,
Bend ’neath the storm-wind, chanting its mystic dirge—
The wind that knows no Lord—Lord of ocean or lea.
Calm are the plains—when the moon’s clear beams are shed
And the wilds lie hushed, all shrouded in silver-grey,
And Nature sinks to rest like one whose life has fled,
E’en as a bride lying dead in her bridal array.
Weird are the plains—the plains that wait for the dawn
When the shadowy darkness strives with the sickly light,
And the battle hangs in the balance, finely drawn,
Till the spears of morning pierce through the mail of night.
Who shall hear, O Nature, messages thou wouldst send
In thy desolate places, far from the moving throng?
Ah, but the soul that loveth thee best may comprehend,
The voice of the silence speaketh louder than song!
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dream tryst
The breaths of kissing night and day
Were mingled in the eastern Heaven,
Throbbing with unheard melody,
Shook Lyra all its star-cloud seven.
When dusk shrank cold, and light trod shy,
And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey;
And souls went palely up to the sky,
And mine to Lucidè,
There was no change in her sweet eyes
Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,
Wherein did ever come and go;
The sparkle of the fountain drops
From her sweet soul below.
The chambers in the house of dream
Are fed with so divine an air,
That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,
And they who walk there are most fair.
I joyed for me, I joyed for her,
Who with the Past meet girt about:
Where her last kiss still warms the air,
Nor can her eyes go out.
poem by Francis Thompson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Wander-Light
And they heard the tent-poles clatter,
And the fly in twain was torn –
'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter
Of the tent where I was born.
And what matters it, I wonder?
Brick or stone or calico? –
Or a bush you were born under,
When it happened long ago?
And my beds were camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,
And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,
Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow –
For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.
And the old hag seemed to ponder
('Twas my mother told me so),
And she said that I would wander
Where but few would think to go.
"He will fly the haunts of tailors,
He will cross the ocean wide,
For his fathers, they were sailors
All on his good father's side."
Behind me, before me, Oh! my roads are stormy
The thunder of skies and the sea's sullen sound,
The coaster or liner, the English or foreign,
The state-room or steerage the wide world round.
And the old hag she seemed troubled
As she bent above the bed,
"He will dream things and he'll see things
To come true when he is dead.
He will see things all too plainly,
And his fellows will deride,
For his mothers they were gipsies
All on his good mother's side."
And my dreams are strange dreams, are day dreams, are grey dreams,
And my dreams are wild dreams, and old dreams and new;
They haunt me and daunt me with fears of the morrow –
My brothers they doubt me – but my dreams come true.
And so I was born of fathers
From where ice-bound harbours are
Men whose strong limbs never rested
And whose blue eyes saw afar.
Till, for gold, one left the ocean,
Seeking over plain and hill;
And so I was born of mothers
Whose deep minds were never still.
I rest not, 'tis best not, the world is a wide one
And, caged for an hour, I pace to and fro;
I see things and dree things and plan while I'm sleeping,
I wander for ever and dream as I go.
I have stood by Table Mountain
On the Lion at Capetown,
And I watched the sunset fading
From the roads that I marked down,
And I looked out with my brothers
From the heights behind Bombay,
Gazing north and west and eastward,
Over roads I'll tread some day.
For my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways,
And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low;
I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not,
And restless and lost on a road that I know.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Wanderer
ON unknown paths I falter forth,
A homeless wand'rer in the world;
Doubtful I flit across the earth,
Whither by blowing fates I'm hurled.
I grope about the pathless wood;
I tread along the boundless plain;
And with the wind's capricious mood,
I sink and rise upon the main.
The lonely cloud within the sky,
That by conflicting gales is torn,
Sways to and fro no more than I,
Now eastward, and now westward borne.
The crested billow on the deep
Knows to which shore its current lies;
The blast--the realms which he must sweep;
The ant--the hill to which it hies.
The stork that seeks the tropic glows,
It knoweth whither it is bound;
And the revolving planet knows
The circle of its luminous round.
But I, confusèd, seek a way
In darkness here; I fall, I sigh,
Upon a broken wing I stray,
And all my help lies in a cry!
poem by Mathilde Blind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Two Locks Of Hair. From The German Of Pfeizer
A Youth, light-hearted and content,
I wander through the world
Here, Arab-like, is pitched my tent
And straight again is furled.
Yet oft I dream, that once a wife
Close in my heart was locked,
And in the sweet repose of life
A blessed child I rocked.
I wake! Away that dream,--away!
Too long did it remain!
So long, that both by night and day
It ever comes again.
The end lies ever in my thought;
To a grave so cold and deep
The mother beautiful was brought;
Then dropt the child asleep.
But now the dream is wholly o'er,
I bathe mine eyes and see;
And wander through the world once more,
A youth so light and free.
Two locks--and they are wondrous fair--
Left me that vision mild;
The brown is from the mother's hair,
The blond is from the child.
And when I see that lock of gold,
Pale grows the evening-red;
And when the dark lock I behold,
I wish that I were dead.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gone Too Far
Kelly stands by the water
With a gun in her hand
She won't believe in the future
In a world made by man
There's nowhere to run
Nowhere to hide
With so much to say and no time
Have we gone too far?
In a world so scarred
Have we gone too far?
Dream away
Joseph stands in the desert
With a gun in his hand
Brother still killing brother
Cold within this eastern land
There's nowhere to run
There's nowhere to hide
With so much to do and no time
Have we gone too far?
In a world so scarred
Have we gone too far?
Dream away
Gone too far
In a world so scarred
Have we gone too far?
Dream away
There must be some other way
A hundred years from green to grey
Close my eyes I'm safe today
Blindly fade away
Gone too far
In a world so scarred
Have we gone too far?
Dream away
Dream away
song performed by by Asia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I Thirst
FIRST VOICE.
I thirst, but earth cannot allay
The fever coursing through my veins,
The healing stream is far away--
It flows through Salem's lovely plains.
The murmurs of its crystal flow
Break ever o'er this world of strife;
My heart is weary, let me go,
To bathe it in the stream of life;
For many worn and weary hearts
Have bathed in this pure healing stream,
And felt their griefs and cares depart,
E'en like some sad forgotten dream.
SECOND VOICE.
"The Word is nigh thee, even in thy heart."
Say not, within thy weary heart,
Who shall ascend above,
To bring unto thy fever'd lips
The fount of joy and love.
Nor do thou seek to vainly delve
Where death's pale angels tread,
To hear the murmur of its flow
Around the silent dead.
Within, in thee is one living fount,
Fed from the springs above;
There quench thy thirst till thou shalt bathe
In God's own sea of love.
poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Out Of Africa
We trod and trod only for out of Africa
We still tread in summer
We always cry out for help
The help of numerous African feebles
We at rest squeeze and squeeze only for gold
We still squeeze ourselves to the fumes
Fumes of poverty by our sites of sights on board
And we never overcome ourselves
We indeed tread and trod for a hand
For out of Africa is our face
Our face of dark and red continent of bungs
But nicely and strongly made
We can't stand near ourselves
Only if well induced
Add power to these poor mothers
Our energetic mothers with children ahead
These African frameworks, these poor beings!
We exceedingly tread for help
For Africa is not for Africans' hope
Yes we can states engulfed by this sky
We need to come out of these flakes
We trod and trod for out of Africa
We still tread in summer
We always flip for alittle push
Push for a support of our wholesome
For without kings' look we are drowned
And these heaps of feebles shall dance at us all
poem by Paul Mwenelupembe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!