The Elfin Artist
In a glade of an elfin forest
When Sussex was Eden-new,
I came on an elvish painter
And watched as his picture grew,
A harebell nodded beside him.
He dipt his brush in the dew.
And it might be the wild thyme round him
That shone in the dark strange ring;
But his brushes were bees' antennae,
His knife was a wasp's blue sting;
And his gorgeous exquisite palette
Was a butterfly's fan-shaped wing.
And he mingled its powdery colours,
And painted the lights that pass,
On a delicate cobweb canvas
That gleamed like a magic glass,
And bloomed like a banner of elf-land,
Between two stalks of grass;
Till it shone like an angel's feather
With sky-born opal and rose,
And gold from the foot of the rainbow,
And colours that no man knows;
And I laughed in the sweet May weather,
Because of the themes he chose.
For he painted the things that matter,
The tints that we all pass by,
Like the little blue wreaths of incense
That the wild thyme breathes to the sky;
Or the first white bud of the hawthorn,
And the light in a blackbird's eye;
And the shadows on soft white cloud-peaks
That carolling skylarks throw,--
Dark dots on the slumbering splendours
That under the wild wings flow,
Wee shadows like violets trembling
On the unseen breasts of snow;
With petals too lovely for colour
That shake to the rapturous wings,
And grow as the bird draws near them,
And die as he mounts and sings,--
Ah, only those exquisite brushes
Could paint these marvellous things.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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Related quotes
Symphony Of Colours
I am a painter,
My hands hold a brush,
Moving as my heart wants,
Laughing the joy and crying the sorrow of my life.
I am playing with warm colours,
Using shadows I am emphasizing light,
I want the mankind see the beauty,
Of the marvelous world we have around.
Colours shine on my blank canvas,
In tones of rainbow and joyful lights,
All the warmth of the living,
Is concentrated in a piece of art.
Vibrant colours are merging together,
Dancing in shadows and lights,
All the past and the present lies here,
Being a reflection of my mind.
My thoughts are filling my canvas,
The brush strokes are following my dream,
Expressing the depths of my heart,
A symphony of colours has many stories to tell.
poem by Cristina Teodor
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Rosy Hannah
A Spring o'erhung with many a flow'r,
The grey sand dancing in its bed,
Embank'd beneath a Hawthorn bower,
Sent forth its waters near my head:
A rosy Lass approach'd my view;
I caught her blue eye's modest beam:
The stranger nodded 'How d'ye do!'
And leap'd across the infant stream.
The water heedless pass'd away:
With me her glowing image stay'd.
I strove, from that auspicious day,
To meet and bless the lovely Maid.
I met her where beneath our feet
Through downy Moss the Wild-Thyme grew;
Nor Moss elastic, flow'rs though sweet,
Match'd Hannah's cheek of rosy hue.
I met her where the dark Woods wave,
And shaded verdure skirts the plain;
And when the pale Moon rising gave
New glories to her cloudy train.
From her sweet Cot upon the Moor
Our plighted vows to Heaven are flown;
Truth made me welcome at her door,
And rosy Hannah is my own.
poem by Robert Bloomfield
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Unforgiving Love
one day a blue bird fell in love with a white rose..the rose was envious of everybod falling in love and was afraid that she will get hurt..the blue bird told her that he had loved her from afar but was too scared to tell the white rose how much he actaully did...the white rose told the bird when my petals turn from white to red i will fall in love with you back....the blue bird came by and by everyday and told the white rose how much he loved her...until one day the blue bird cut his wings and soaked the white rose with his blood...the white rose's petals turned from white to a luscious red and she realized how much the blue bird loved her..but it was too late the blue bird fell in front of the rose and the rose was red forever..that's why roses are giving to the ones we loved
poem by Ariff Khan
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Green and blue
Green and blue
First-named of colours believe these two.
They first of colours by men were seen
This grass colour, tree colour,
Sky colour, sea colour,
Magic-named, mystic-souled, blue and green.
Later came
Small subtle colours like tongues of flame,
Small jewel colours for treasure trove,
Not fruit colour, flower colour,
Cloud colour, shower colour,
But purple, amethyst, violet and mauve.
These remain,
Two broad fair colours for our larger gain
Stretched underfoot or spreading wide on high,
Green beech colour, vine colour,
Gum colour, pine colour,
Blue of the noonday and the moonlit sky.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Black And White
He painted a picture all white and black
because in his life all color did he lack.
He lacked the yellow of the sun each day
for the sun had never come his way.
He lacked the green of fresh green grass
for the cement of the city he couldn't get past.
He lacked the blue of the sky above
for no one had ever shown him love.
He lacked the red that the rose did give
for no roses grew where he did live.
He lacked all color from his sight.
All he knew was black and white.
The picture he painted could never tell
of how his life became a living hell.
He'd lost his sight when he was three
and the colors were a lost memory.
His sole memory was of dark and light,
night being dark, day being white.
And now he created art to define
everything that was in his mind.
But beauty came from the paint he used.
The black and white became infused
with the extracted senses of who he was,
a man filled with passion for what he does.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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White And Black
He painted a picture all white and black
because in his life all color did he lack.
He lacked the yellow of the sun each day
for the sun had never come his way.
He lacked the green of fresh green grass
for the cement of the city he couldn't get past.
He lacked the blue of the sky above
for no one had ever showed him love.
He lacked the red that the rose did give
for no roses grew where he did live.
He lacked all color from his sight.
All he knew was black and white.
The picture he painted could never tell
of how his life was a living hell.
He'd lost his sight when he was three
and the colors were a lost memory.
His sole memory was of dark and light,
night being dark, day being white.
And now he created art to define
everything that was in his mind.
But beauty came from the paint he used.
The black and white became infused
with the extracted senses of who he was,
a man filled with passion for what he does.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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The Artist's Canvas
the artist's canvas
it is similar as the world
we all strive to paint
with the redness of our blood,
the heat of our passions
and the brushes of our life
how floored we are at times
in the face of things,
how petrified when things
turn out to be red rather
than the blue of our thought
Love which I have always
perceived to be pink is
actually a warm glow of
your fair skin and veins
under the morning sun and
the translucent brown of your eyes
and also beige and
forest green so splendid
they charm the emptiness
of the grey of day away
the freshness of your breath
is a consuming white and
your touch, a trimming of the
brown of muslin for us to anchor
our ecstacy as we lock eyes
in between all these are
the wave and wave of frenzied strokes,
blobs, globs, fuzzy angles
cubes and circles that never
fail to carry us over to the rainbow,
our feet to tango, our heart to sing
and our voice to soar
of love, of sweet dates, of angels
flying over to our paths
the artist's canvas
it is inviting as life where
our imagination can cruise
beyond the ends of earth
free as a bird and rich
as all the colours on the palette
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Dream In Colour
You wake up to tell me (that youre numb inside, that the feelings all have died)
Youre praying and youre saying (that you do believe, but I dont believe thats true)
Everything has always been there
Nothing goes away that wont come back
Youre living in a house of cards
And youre blowing down the stack
She sleeps under a rainbow
She wont dream in colour
She thinks that her soul is painted
Grey or black or white
Sleeping under a rainbow
She could dream in colour
Dream in colour tonight
Glass mirror, look in (I know its hard to see, when the one you free is you)
Sleep walking, high talking (but the colours arent real and the things you feel dont last)
You sit there looking at the sunrise
Not knowing if the day has come or gone
Wondering why it turns you off
When it never turns you on
She sleeps under a rainbow
She wont dream in colour
She thinks that her soul is painted
Grey or black or white
Sleeping under a rainbow
She could dream in colour
Dream in colour tonight
Picking at the lock on the front door
Pulling at the shutters on the windows
But youre living in a house of shadows
Even though youre lonely you think its you
Sitting at that table set for one
Youre waiting for the guest that never comes
She sleeps under a rainbow
She wont dream in colour
She thinks that her soul is painted
Grey or black or white
Sleeping under a rainbow
She could dream in colour
Dream in colour tonight
song performed by by Rick Springfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thoughts at the Trysting Stile
Come, May, and hang a white flag on each thorn,
Make truce with earth and heaven; the April child
Now hides her sulky face deep in the morn
Of your new flowers by the water wild
And in the ripples of the rising grass,
And rushes bent to let the south wind pass
On with her tumult of swift nomad wings,
And broken domes of downy dandelion.
Only in spasms now the blackbird sings.
The hour is all a-dream.
Nets of woodbine
Throw woven shadows over dreaming flowers,
And dreaming, a bee-luring lily bends
Its tender bell where blue dyke-water cowers
Thro' briars and folded ferns, and gripping ends
Of wild convolvulus.
The lark's sky-way
Is desolate.
I watch an apple-spray
Beckon across a wall as if it knew
I wait the calling of the orchard maid.
Inly I fell she will come in blue,
With yellow on her hair, and two curls strayed
Out of her comb's loose stocks, and I shall steal
Behind and lay my hands upon her eyes,
'Look not, but be my Psyche! '
And her peal
Of laughter will ring far, and as she tries
For freedom I will call her names of flowers
That climb up walls; then thro' the twilight hours
We'll talk about the loves of ancient queens,
And kisses like wasp-honey, false and sweet,
And how we are entangled in love's snares
Like wind-looped flowers.
poem by Francis Ledwidge
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The Better Part
THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill
Where three bent yew trees cower,
The gipsy roses grow there still,
And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower,
The pale blue violets that love the chalk
Cling light round the lichened stone,
And starlings chatter and grey owls talk
In the belfry o' nights alone.
It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years
From the brick-built, gas-lit town
To the little church where the wild thyme hears
The bees and the breeze of the down.
The town is crowded and hard and rough;
Let those fight in its press who will--
But the little churchyard is quiet enough,
And there's room in the churchyard still.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Black, White Or Coloured
I was born black and you were born white or coloured;
But we all came from the lovely hands of the Creator,
Because the Creator loves colours!
And like the muse of the rainbow seen across the sky.
I am always black! !
In the sun, in sickness and even when i die;
But the Creator made it so,
And i will be buried as a black when i die.
You were born white or coloured,
But you came out of the womb with the colour of the rose!
And you became whit eor coloured in the process of your growth,
But you are always blue when it is cold.
You do turn green when there is fear in your eyes!
But yellow when you are sick;
And like the various colours of the rainbow as seen across the sky,
But you will be grey when you die.
This shows that i am always black from birth to death,
But you do have various colours to satisfy your muse like the rainbow;
So you are more coloured than i am in this life,
And we all know the reality of these facts on this earth.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Faute De Mieux
WHEN the corn is green and the poppies red
And the fields are crimson with love-lies-bleeding,
When the elms are black deep overhead
And the shade lies cool where the calves are feeding,
When the blackbird whistles the song of June,
When kine knee-deep in the pond are drowsing,
Leave pastoral peace--come up through the noon
To the high chalk downs where the sheep are browsing.
Oh! sweet to dream in the noontide heat,
On the scented bed of thyme and clover,
With the air from the sea, blown keen and sweet,
And the wings of the wide sky folded over,
While, far in the blue, the skylark sings,
Renounce desire and renounce endeavour,
Forget life's little unworthy things
And dream that the dream will last for ever.
The love of your life, in your heart's hid shrine,
With its gifts and its torments, leave it sighing,
And I will bury the pain of mine
In the selfsame grave where its joy is lying.
Let me hold your hand for a quiet hour
In the wild thyme's scent and the clear blue weather,
Then come what may, we have plucked one flower,
This hour on the downs alone together.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Shadows on the Down
When daffodils danced in Chuck Hatch, and white clouds
Drew their own shadowy purple across the hills,
Darkening the valley where the small flint church
The Saxon built stood roofless to the sun,
Believe me, Memory, it was not a shadow!
No shadow of a cloud you saw that day
Flowing across the smooth deep-breasted downs,
But something darker, sweeter,--the wild thyme
Of Sussex, flowing like a river of joy
That tossed a hundred skylarks up.
& nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; ; No shadow,
Believe me, Memory, but the purple thyme
Flowing by windmill and by wattled fold
On to the white chalk coast and sparkling sea.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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The Treasure
UNDER our lead we lie
While the sun and the snow go by,
And our shrouds lie close, lie close,
Like the leaves of a shut white rose
That knows not what summer knows
Before it is time to die.
You, in the sun, up there
Where the wild thyme scents the air;
Is it warm still--and sweet and gay
Up there in the wide blue day?
Do you pity us, shut away
From the fields where the flowers are fair?
Pity us here? shut in
In the dark, where the flowers begin?
The coins lie light on our eyes,
In our empty hands is the prize,
The treasure that fools and wise
Are breaking their hearts to win!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Butterfly Believer
The first of two white butterflies
Left Noah on the ark
And flew upon the fresh-aired skies
To join the crow and lark...
The butterfly looked at the grass
That shone its gracious green
And at each tree that he could pass,
Majestic and serene...
The lake he crossed reflected blue
And sometimes clouds of grey
And ripples caused a silver hue,
Like dew at break of day...
Then suddenly a rainbow formed,
The first Mankind had known,
That followed all that rain that stormed
When judgement had been shown...
That butterfly was thus amazed,
'Why can't we be like this?
With colours that are highly praised,
Resplendent, sharing bliss? '
The Lord reflected for a while,
On that white butterfly,
Then with a word and with a smile
God gave a swift reply!
The butterfly was flying still,
Across a meadow's spread
And as he looked upon the hill,
He saw something ahead...
He saw the other butterfly,
With colours left and right...
Her wings ablaze against the sky!
Her splendour brought delight!
He chased her and she saw him, too!
They shared their miracle!
For he was also sparkling new,
Just as adorable!
And so they danced there side-by-side,
Rejoicing in their style...
And God looked down with newborn pride
And with a joyful smile...
Denis Martindale, copyright, September 2012.
We can hear the word of the Lord on
Revelation TV on UK Sky Digital 581
as well as the WATCH NOW link on
the revelationtv-dot-com website...
poem by Denis Martindale
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Sky
If we could change the colour of the sky
What would it be?
Would it be one, not of colour, but of night?
Or paint it the colours of a rainbow with a trick of light?
Have its colours changed by butterflies and the buzzing of bees
Whilst we serenely listen to the gentle whisper of a light breeze?
For this is one thing that will never fade or die
Though to know would be to question why.
So until the stars disappear from above our heads
And we continue to dream when we're safe asleep in our beds
Always beam a smile when you see a butterfly flutter by
For it is he we must thank for giving us the wonderful blue sky
- except today because it's raining.
poem by JeanJacques Evendon
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Colorful Autumn
The fountain sings, the clouds stand
In clear blueness, white, delicate;
Silent people wander thoughtfully
Down there in the evening-blue garden.
The ancestors' marble has turned grey.
A line of birds streaks into the distance
A faun with dead eyes gazes
On shadows that glide into darkness.
Leaves fall red from the old tree,
Rotate inside through the open window.
The room glows in dark fires,
In it shadows, like ghosts.
Opal smoke weaves over the grass,
A cloud of wilted, bleached scents,
In the fountain the sickle moon shines
Like a green glass in freezing air.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Hills Of Youth
Once, on the far blue hills,
Alone with the pine and the cloud, in those high still places;
Alone with a whisper of ferns and a chuckle of rills,
And the peat-brown pools that mirrored the angels’ faces,
Pools that mirrored the wood-pigeon’s grey-blue feather,
And all my thistledown dreams as they drifted along;
Once, oh, once, on the hills, thro’ the red-bloomed heather
I followed an elfin song.
Once, by the wellsprings of joy,
In the glens of the hart’s-tongue fern, where the brooks came leaping
Over the rocks, like a scrambling bare-foot boy
That never had heard of a world grown old with weeping;
Once, thro’ the golden gorse (do the echoes linger
In Paradise woods, where the foam of the may runs wild?)
I followed the flute of a light-foot elfin singer,
A god with the eyes of a child.
Once, he sang to me there,
From a crag on a thyme-clad height where the dew still glistened;
He sang like the spirit of Spring in that dawn-flushed air,
While the angels opened their doors and the whole sky listened:
He sang like the soul of a rainbow, if heaven could hear it,
Beating to heaven, on wings that were April’s own;
A song too happy and brave for the heart to bear it,
Had the heart of the hearer known.
Once, ah, once, no more,
The hush and the rapture of youth in those holy places,
The stainless height, the hearts that sing and adore
Till the sky breaks out into flower with the angels’ faces!
Once, in the dawn, they were mine; but the noon bereft me.
At midnight now, in an ebb of the loud world’s roar,
I catch but a broken stave of the songs that left me
On hills that are mine no more.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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The Swamp
FOR one whole day and a long night through
We made our camp
In a she-oak grove by a coastal swamp.
Our tent gleamed white in the she-oak trees,
Whose falling hair
Made a soft, brown mist in the sweet blue air.
A sound subdued from their tresses rose —
A moan, a sigh
As of unseen seas, when the breeze went by.
'Twas wattle-time, and the scented bloom,
New lit and young,
In a mass of gold from the still trees hung.
There music dwelt, and a splendour moved
Through all the day
From the green of dawn to the twilight gray.
For careless ever, like one who goes
Where Joyance leads,
Sang the little reed-bird in the tall, green reeds.
Blue, swift and slender the dragonflies
A-hawking flew,
And a hawk hung poised in the burning blue.
A crane, slow-flapping its great wings, passed
Across the scene,
And a parrot jewelled the leafy screen.
In twos and threes from the hills around
The peewits came,
And the brush-flower burnt like a crimson flame.
On ti-tree trunk and on frond and log
The lizards slept,
While the sun moved west, and the shadows crept.
The sun moved west, and the tall hills sent
Broad shadows east,
And the reed-bird's song in the reed-beds ceased.
Then fell a hush, and within that hush
Rose, clear and shrill,
A cicada note on a distant hill.
A note of farewell, it seemed to us,
Its singing bore;
And the night came down, and it sang no more.
Night came with shadows and fitful gleams
And mist and damp,
And our fire burned red by the coastal swamp.
Then life not known of the daytime woke —
That life that preys
On the feathered things of the leafy ways.
We heard feet moving, and velvet wings
On swamp and height,
And a dingo howling across the night.
As, faces lit by the red camp-fire,
We mused enthralled.
Like a lone, lost spirit a curlew called;
Brown crickets sang in the moisty mould,
And every breeze
Drew a moaning note from the she-oak trees.
And all night long, as they swayed and moaned,
Strange fancies woke,
And we could not rest for the things they spoke.
Thus much and more through the hours we saw;
Thus much we heard
In that place of blossom and tree and bird.
Since then gold wattles have bloomed and bloomed,
And moons aloft
In the sky have wizened and waned full oft.
And yet, at times, when the night is still,
In dreams I tramp
Through the white sand-dunes to that coastal camp.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Spring Morning
Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.
Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.
If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
'Doesn't the sky look green today?'
Where am I going? The high rooks call:
'It's awful fun to be born at all.'
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
'We do have beautiful things to do.'
If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
'That's where I wanted to go today!'
Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.
poem by Alan Alexander Milne
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