Sunrise on the Coast
Grey dawn on the sand-hills -- the night wind has drifted
All night from the rollers a scent of the sea;
With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted,
At the call of the morning they scatter and flee.
Like mariners calling the roll of their number
The sea-fowl put out to the infinite deep.
And far overhead -- sinking softly to slumber --
Worn out by their watching the stars fall asleep.
To eastward, where rests the broad dome of the skies on
The sea-line, stirs softly the curtain of night;
And far from behind the enshrouded horizon
Comes the voice of a God saying "Let there be light."
And lo, there is light! Evanescent and tender,
It glows ruby-red where 'twas now ashen-grey;
And purple and scarlet and gold in its splendour --
Behold, 'tis that marvel, the birth of a day!
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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A Trembling Star
"There is my little trembling star," she said.
I looked; once more
The tender sea had put the sun to bed,
And heaven's floor
Was grey.
And nowhere yet in all that young night sky
Was any star,
But one that hung above the sea. Not high,
Nor very far
Away.
"I watch it every night," she said, and crept
Within my arm.
"Soft little star, I wish the angels kept
It safe from harm
Alway.
"I know it is afraid," she said; her eyes
Held a sweet tear.
"They send it all alone into the skies,
No big stars near,
To stay.
"They push it out before the sweet, kind moon
Lights up the sea.
They laugh because it fears the dark. `Soon, soon,
You'll braver be,'
They say.
"One night I climbed far up that high white tree
Beside the beach,
And tried to stretch my hand across the sea
And tried to reach
The grey.
"For something made me feel my heart would break
Unless that night
I in my hand my trembling star could take
And kiss its fright
Away.
"There only blew a strange wind chillily,
And clouds were swept.
The angels would not let my own star see
That someone wept.
I pray
"To Christ, who hears my little prayers each night,
That He will seek
Through all His skies for that sweet, frightened light,
And stoop His cheek
And say
"`My angels must not send so frail a thing
To light the West.
Lift up the little trembling star to cling
About my breast
Alway.'"
poem by Ethel Turner
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Days
I am a Day . . .
My sky is grey,
My wind is wild,
My sea high-piled:
In year of days the first
In misery . . .
Oh pity me!
I am a Day
Accurst.
"Sweet Day, not curst but blest:
Behold upon my breast
My baby born
Your early morn.
Safe in my arms alway . . .
Oh precious Day,
let tempest be,
You are to me
In heart of mine
Divine."
* * * * * * *
I am a Day . . .
From dawn's pure ray
Like to a peerless gem
In summer's diadem,
My sky so softly dreams,
my breeze is bland:
My sea is blue and creams
Upon the sand,
Behold! Of days the Queen
I reign serene.
"Oh Day, not blest but curst!
Let savage storm-rack burst,
i will not care . . .
For Lo! I bear
My baby's coffin to the height.
Ah! Would it were the foulest night
To match my mood''s
Ingratitude.
I cannot not pray . . .
Go your fell way,
Accursed Day!"
poem by Robert William Service
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I Am The Dawn
Sun splashed drops of sugar candy
White gold flicks of molten light
A horizon boysenberry stained
Quick to come and fast to leave
Oh fickle is the dawn
I am this ever-changing dawn
Sweet and pleasing; a lovers candy
Yet men forget how quick I leave
Fleeting as those pale beams of morning moon light
"Come and stare, " they say " at this rising sun."
They yearn a kiss of my passion red lips stained
I am the harlot you see at night, shadow stained
Most who see me don't believe I am a child of the dawn
But as my grandmother would always say all women are part sun
She knew what I couldn't see, that I was sunlit orange candy
That even those who lives are lived in midnight darkness, must have star light
She told me that some lights never leave
To watch, dream and wish and my sun would never leave
But fickle and young I became stained
I forgot what I could be with light
I never watched the rising dawn
Dreamed of clouds of soft spun candy
Or wished of flying in the warming sun
I spent my thoughts in corners hidden from beams of sun
"I bid you leave me" I would yell, "Leave! "
Then in my night a man came to me with a gift of sunlit orange candy
A man so young, I called him boy, his cheeks becoming sunrise red stained
It was like he hadn't noticed I was living night, he called me dawn
No man had ever reminded me of my light
"I am a shadow! " And he would protest, "Even shadows need light"
""But I am wicked", "Yes", he would say, "So is the sun"
"But I am fickle", "Ah and so is the dawn"
"Stop! " he shouts "enough I will not leave"
I know you think you are darkened and stained
But to me you are filled of sunlit orange candy
So glow my dawn, your love filled light
You are my toot-sweet candy, my bright and burning sun
I am your light that shall not leave; your sunrise whirl has me stained
poem by Natalie Linda Harrison
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On The Night Train
Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by?
Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry;
Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?
Have you heard the still voice calling – yet so warm, and yet so cold:
"I'm the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old"?
Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
"I'm the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old"?)
In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
"You have seen the seas and cities – all is cold to you, or dead –
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I'm the Mother-Bush that loves you – come to me now you are old"?
poem by Henry Lawson
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Nightfall for M'Lady Ernestine
The evening sky in shades of grey.
Light grey, dark, grey, all tinged with gold
Denotes the ending of the day.
I watch entranced as I behold
the darkness falling gradually.
The blue transmutes to indigo,
the last remnants of day light flee.
Reluctantly but they must go.
The stars come slowly into view.
The constellations wheel and turn,
forever old, forever new
and catch your eye each in their turn.
If I but wait the moon will rise.
Each night provides some new surprise.
18-Jul-08
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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The Grey World
Grey nights in the wind,
And the grey-faced dead.
Grey hairs in my head,
And grey eyes in my mind.
Grey mists in the morn,
And grey waves that rave,
Grey mould on my grave,
And grey eyes forlorn.
Grey clouds in the sky,
And the grey world asleep,
Grey ghosts that sigh,
And grey eyes that weep.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Stars in the Sea
I took a boat on a starry night
and went for a row on the water,
and she danced like a child on a wake of light
and bowed where the ripples caught her.
I vowed, as I rowed on the velvet blue
through the night and the starry spendour
to woo and sue a maiden I know
till she bent to my pleading tender.
My painted boat she was light and glad
and gladder my heart was wishing,
and I came in time to a little lad
who stood on the rocks a-fishing.
I said "Ahoy!" and he said "Ahoy"!
and I asked how the fish were biting;
And what are you trying to catch my boy,
Bream, silver and red - or Whiting?"
"Neither", he answered, "the seaweed mars
my line, and the sharp shells sunder;
I am trying my luck wth those great big stars
down there in the round skies under".
"Goodbye!" from him and "Goodbye!" from me,
and never a laugh came after;
So many fishing for stars in the sea
that it's hardly a subject for laughter
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Day dawn
All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
And when sleep wandered o'er the world that very thought she stole
To fill my dreams with splendour such as stars could not eclipse,
And in the morn I wakened with your name upon my lips.
Awakened, my beloved, to the morning of your eyes,
Your splendid eyes, so full of clouds, wherein a shadow tries
To overcome the flame that melts into the world of grey,
As coming suns dissolve the dark that veils the edge of day.
Cool drifts the air at dawn of day, cool lies the sleeping dew,
But all my heart is burning, for it woke from dreams of you;
And O! these longing eyes of mine look out and only see
A dying night, a waking day, and calm on all but me.
So gently creeps the morning through the heavy air,
The dawn grey-garbed and velvet-shod is wandering everywhere
To wake the slumber-laden hours that leave their dreamless rest,
With outspread, laggard wings to court the pillows of the west.
Up from the earth a moisture steals with odours fresh and soft,
A smell of moss and grasses warm with dew, and far aloft
The stars are growing colourless, while drooping in the west,
A late, wan moon is paling in a sky of amethyst.
The passing of the shadows, as they waft their pinions near,
Has stirred a tender wind within the night-hushed atmosphere,
That in its homeless wanderings sobs in an undertone
An echo to my heart that sobbing calls for you alone.
The night is gone, beloved, and another day set free,
Another day of hunger for the one I may not see.
What care I for the perfect dawn? the blue and empty skies?
The night is always mine without the morning of your eyes.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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The True Lover
The lad came to the door at night,
When lovers crown their vows,
And whistled soft and out of sight
In shadow of the boughs.
"I shall not vex you with my face
Henceforth, my love, for aye;
So take me in your arms a space
Before the cast is grey.
"When I from hence away am past
I shall not find a bride,
And you shall be the first and last
I ever lay beside."
She heard and went and knew not why;
Her heart to his she laid;
Light was the air beneath the sky
But dark under the shade.
"Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast
Seems not to rise and fall,
And here upon my bosom prest
There beats no heart at all?"
"Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,
You should have felt it then;
But since for you I stopped the clock
It never goes again."
"Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips
Wet from your neck on mine?
What is it falling on my lips,
My lad, that tastes of brine?"
"Oh like enough 'tis blood, my dear,
For when the knife was slit,
The throat across from ear to ear
'Twill bleed because of it."
Under the stars the air was light
But dark below the boughs,
The still air of the speechless night,
When lovers crown their vows.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
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Grey Riders
The night was cold
And the wind was howling
I was awaken by the sound
Of hoof beats pounding.
Outside the window, on the ground
Our hound dog was growling
Grey riders flew across my lawn
I looked again and they all were gone.
That voice was calling
And it cut through the night
Come on boys, let her go.
Up on a hill
They rode in one long column
They were freezing with the chills
Of the new day dawning.
Their hair long and grey
They heard just one voice calling
Grey riders on the morning sky,
The sun made diamonds of their road-weary eyes.
That voice is calling
And it cut through the night
Come on boys, let her go.
The night was cold
And the wind was howling
I was awaken by the sound
Of hoof beats pounding.
Outside the window, on the ground
Our hound dog was growling
Grey riders flew across my lawn
I looked again and they all were gone.
That voice was calling
And it cut through the night
Come on boys, let her go.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Wings In The Night
Now in the soft spring midnight
There's rush of wings and whirr,
Birds flying softly, swiftly;
The night's a-flutter, a-stir.
Home by the bitter seas,
They have sped home together.
So glad to be coming home
To the grey hills, the grey weather.
Calling and calling softly
One lights by the window-pane:
The rook, weary with building,
Turns to his sleep again.
Ere ever the moor-hens wake
And the wild duck come in,
The birds are about the house
With a long call and thin.
They have wakened the wood-pigeon
To make her plaintive moan,
The wood-pigeon lamenting
For sorrows not her own.
Oh, they are never birds,
But souls of men on the wind,
Seeking the mother's breast,
The heart that is soft and kind.
Souls of the Irish dead,
Flown from the fields of slaughter,
Home to the mother's arms
Over the wild grey water.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Dream Star
Whisper, O wings of the wind! Sing me your song, O sea!
Grey is the weary world, and grey is the heart of me!
Into my shadowy heart pierce like the star of old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
Sing me the hope made sure, sing me the heart made strong!
Give me the battle-fire, give me the bugle-song
Onward ever and on, O swift, green bird of the sun;
Ever a vaster goal for the goal that thy wings have won.
Keen with a tireless beat is the rush of thy wings that soar;
But keener, swifter than thee is the vision that flies before.
What though we die forgot and sad for the song unsung!
Fresh from her thousand deaths ever the world is young.
For, ever the dream-world floats, a light on a misty bar,
And ever the grey earth follows the wake of that pilot star;
Follows a spirit ship that bears o’er a spirit sea
Shadows of thoughts unborn, phantoms of destiny.
Silver the giant sails loom through the amber haze,
And ever the helmsman Hope steers for the halcyon days;
And ever the voices call, out of the golden light,
Into the dreamer’s heart, sad in the lonely night—
Call like the ring of steel and thrill as of bugles blown,
Splendours of days to be, flaming in skies unknown.
Deep in the eastern skies glimmers that phantom star;
Dim in the distance dies the surge of the world afar.
Ah, but like broken swords, scattered along the van,
Perish the outpost souls that fall in the march of Man!
Ah, but they die not so; out of their ashes then
Flowers of immortal Love spring in the hearts of men!
Wings of the swift green Earth, ever and ever young—
This is the whispered word the wind of the morning sung!
This is the rune I heard flung by the ocean old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
poem by George Essex Evans
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Nocturne
Night of Mid-June, in heavy vapours dying,
Like priestly hands thy holy touch is lying
Upon the world's wide brow;
God-like and grand all nature is commanding
The "peace that passes human understanding";
I, also, feel it now.
What matters it to-night, if one life treasure
I covet, is not mine! Am I to measure
The gifts of Heaven's decree
By my desires? O! life for ever longing
For some far gift, where many gifts are thronging,
God wills, it may not be.
Am I to learn that longing, lifted higher,
Perhaps will catch the gleam of sacred fire
That shows my cross is gold?
That underneath this cross--however lowly,
A jewel rests, white, beautiful and holy,
Whose worth can not be told.
Like to a scene I watched one day in wonder:--
A city, great and powerful, lay under
A sky of grey and gold;
The sun outbreaking in his farewell hour,
Was scattering afar a yellow shower
Of light, that aureoled
With brief hot touch, so marvellous and shining,
A hundred steeples on the sky out-lining,
Like network threads of fire;
Above them all, with halo far outspreading,
I saw a golden cross in glory heading
A consecrated spire:
I only saw its gleaming form uplifting,
Against the clouds of grey to seaward drifting,
And yet I surely know
Beneath the seen, a great unseen is resting,
For while the cross that pinnacle is cresting,
An Altar lies below.
. . . . .
Night of Mid-June, so slumberous and tender,
Night of Mid-June, transcendent in thy splendour
Thy silent wings enfold
And hush my longing, as at thy desire
All colour fades from round that far-off spire,
Except its cross of gold.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Expostulation and Reply
"Why, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?
"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.
"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:
"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.
"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?
"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,"
poem by William Wordsworth
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Grey, Grey Sky
Someday I will ride the great bird
Into the sky, into the grey
And will take a bright secret of mine
Into the grey, grey sky.
And the light will come, piercing my eyes
Out of the sky, out of the grey
Come blinding and searing these eyes
Out of the grey, grey sky.
And I will find comfort in this
In the wide sky, in the wide grey
In the painful dark brightness of light
Light of the grey, grey sky.
My secret will fly away home
Into the sky, into the grey
And the great bird will follow it there
Into the grey, grey sky.
And I will be riding that bird
Bird of the sky, bird of the grey
And I will come home once again
Home to the grey, grey sky.
But for now I am weighted, earthbound
One of the mud, one of the ground
And I write this sad song to sad sound
Girl of the pavement sighs.
poem by Grace Hutton
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The night wind
Have you ever heard the wind go "Yooooo"?
'T is a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
'T is the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many's the time I've cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over the land and the deep:
Whom do you want, O lonely night,
That you wail the long hours through?"
And the night would say in its ghostly way:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
My mother told me long ago
(When I was a little tad)
That when the night went wailing so,
Somebody had been bad;
And then, when I was snug in bed,
Whither I had been sent,
With the blankets pulled up round my head,
I'd think of what my mother'd said,
And wonder what boy she meant!
And "Who's been bad to-day?" I'd ask
Of the wind that hoarsely blew,
And the voice would say in its meaningful way:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
That this was true I must allow -
You'll not believe it, though!
Yes, though I'm quite a model now,
I was not always so.
And if you doubt what things I say,
Suppose you make the test;
Suppose, when you've been bad some day
And up to bed are sent away
From mother and the rest -
Suppose you ask, "Who has been bad?"
And then you'll hear what's true;
For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:
"Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!"
poem by Eugene Field
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When Someone Says: "Alexandria"
When someone says: "Alexandria,"
I see the white walls of a house,
a small garden row of gillyflowers,
an autumn evening's pale sunlight
and hear the music of distant flutes.
When someone says: "Alexandria,"
I see stars above the hushed city,
drunken sailors in dark quarters,
a dancing girl performing the "wasp,"
and hear tambourines and the noise of fights.
When someone says "Alexandria,"
I see a pale purple sunset above the green sea,
the flickering of furry stars
and the light grey eyes beneath thick brows
that I see even when
no one says: "Alexandria!"
poem by Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
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The Night Cometh
Cometh the night. The wind falls low,
The trees swing slowly to and fro:
Around the church the headstones grey
Cluster, like children strayed away
But found again, and folded so.
No chiding look doth she bestow:
If she is glad, they cannot know;
If ill or well they spend their day,
Cometh the night.
Singing or sad, intent they go;
They do not see the shadows grow;
"There yet is time," they lightly say,
"Before our work aside we lay";
Their task is but half-done, and lo!
Cometh the night.
poem by John McCrae
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The Weather's Wet!
The weather's wet, and skies are grey,
I wish I could just stay in bed,
But I must go to work today,
I'm safe beneath the warm duvet,
Not thinking ‘bout the day ahead,
The weather's wet, and skies are grey,
If only I could stay away,
I'd rather be at home instead,
But I must go to work today,
"Get up, get out, and earn your pay! "
A little voice screams in my head.
The weather's wet, and skies are grey,
A normal British summer's day,
With forecasts of more rain ahead,
But I must go to work today,
I wish there were another way,
In which to earn my daily bread,
The weather's wet, and skies are grey,
But I must go to work today.
poem by Graeme Williams
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The Recall
The night was dark when she went away, and the slept.
The night is dark now, and I call for her, "Come back, my
darling; the world is asleep; and no one would know, if you came
for a moment while stars are gazing at stars."
She went away when the trees were in bud and the spring was
young.
Now the flowers are in high bloom and I call, "Come back, my
darling. The children gather and scatter flowers in reckless sport.
And if you come and take one little blossom no one will miss it."
Those that used to play are playing still, so spendthrift is
life.
I listen to their chatter and call, "Come back, my darling,
for mother's heart is full to the brim with love, and if you come
to snatch only one little kiss from her no one will grudge it."
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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