The Swallows
AH! swallows, is it so?
Did loving lingering summer, whose slow pace
Tarried among late blossoms, loth to go,
Gather the darkening cloud-wraps round her face
And weep herself away in last week's rain?
Can no new sunlight waken her again?
'Yes,' one pale rose a-blow
Has answered from the trellised lane;
The flickering swallows answer 'No.'
From out the dim grey sky
The arrowy swarm breaks forth and specks the air,
While, one by one, birds wheel and float and fly,
And now are gone, then suddenly are there;
Till lo, the heavens are empty of them all.
Oh, fly, fly south, from leaves that fade and fall,
From shivering flowers that die;
Free swallows, fly from winter's thrall,
Ye who can give the gloom good-bye.
But what for us who stay
To hear the winds and watch the boughs grow black,
And in the soddened mornings, day by day,
Count what lost sweets bestrew the nightly track
Of frost-foot winter trampling towards his throne?
Swallows, who have the sunlight for your own,
Fly on your sunward way;
For you has January buds new blown,
For us the snows and gloom and grey.
On, on, beyond our reach,
Swallows, with but your longing for a guide:
Let the hills rise, let the waves tear the beach,
Ye will not balk your course nor turn aside,
But find the palms and twitter in the sun.
And well for them whose eager wings have won
The longed for goal of flight;
But what of them in twilights dun
Who long, but have no wings for flight?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Related quotes
Swallows in the summertime
Swallows in the summertime
The swallows have returned again,
Reminding me of those halcyon days of my youth,
Many years have passed since those blissful days,
I would spend many happy evenings watch them dart around.
The swallows always return each summer,
Spreading their joyful wings over England's green and pleasant land,
Every summer I wonder how many more times will I see the return,
Although it's summer again, I ‘am approaching the winter of my life.
When the swallows return again next year again,
I wonder if I will still be here to see them again,
Flying on the wing under the clear blue skies of summer,
If I ‘am, I will sit by the babbling brook and watch their dance once more.
If I see the swallows return once more,
I will remember those summer days of long ago,
When I was a lad and the countryside seemed to go on forever,
And in my mind I will be young again.
By Christopher Tye
poem by Christopher Tye
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Bat
At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ...
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding ...
When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno ...
Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water.
And you think:
'The swallows are flying so late!'
Swallows?
Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop ...
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,
And falling back.
Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio ...
Changing guard.
Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.
Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Wings like bits of umbrella.
Bats!
Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
Not for me!
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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The Opening in the Sky to Heaven
in the eyes of the swallows
the sky winds its way into
a mysterious golden
- cool luminous opening
to where heaven is
on and on the excited swallows
would sing wishing one day
it would be able to explore
what is inside
on and on the swallows would sing
as they cruise the sky
delighting all earth's inhabitants
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Letter to Prof Wole Soyinka
to the stone that sharpens axe,
kudos.
to the stone that grinds pepper,
kudos.
to the bird that swallows snake,
kudos.
to the woman who swallows man,
kudos.
to the man who swallows lion,
kudos.
to the hunter who returns
from exploit, when the day breaks,
kudos!
poem by Stephen Olufemi Omolara
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Swallows Travel To And Fro
SWALLOWS travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,
And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.
Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at noonday, you and I
See the same sunshine above.
Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.
Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;
Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble with the same delight -
Tremble, half the world apart.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Blue Swallows
Across the millstream below the bridge
Seven blue swallows divide the air
In shapes invisible and evanescent,
Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s
Or memory’s power to keep them there.
“History is where tensions were,”
“Form is the diagram of forces.”
Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge,
While gazing down upon those birds—
How strange, to be above the birds!—
Thus helplessly the mind in its brain
Weaves up relation’s spindrift web,
Seeing the swallows’ tails as nibs
Dipped in invisible ink, writing…
Poor mind, what would you have them write?
Some cabalistic history
Whose authorship you might ascribe
To God? to Nature? Ah, poor ghost,
You’ve capitalized your Self enough.
That villainous William of Occam
Cut out the feet from under that dream
Some seven centuries ago.
It’s taken that long for the mind
To waken, yawn and stretch, to see
With opened eyes emptied of speech
The real world where the spelling mind
Imposes with its grammar book
Unreal relations on the blue
Swallows. Perhaps when you will have
Fully awakened, I shall show you
A new thing: even the water
Flowing away beneath those birds
Will fail to reflect their flying forms,
And the eyes that see become as stones
Whence never tears shall fall again.
O swallows, swallows, poems are not
The point. Finding again the world,
That is the point, where loveliness
Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
poem by Howard Nemerov
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Prelude
What a twitter! what a tumult! what a whirr of wheeling wings!
Birds of Passage hear the message which the Equinoctial brings.
Birds of Passage hear the message and beneath the flying clouds,
Mid the falling leaves of autumn, congregate in clamorous crowds.
Shall they venture on the voyage? are the nestlings fledged for flight;
Fit to face the fluctuant storm-winds and the elemental night?
What a twitter! what a tumult! to the wild wind's marching song
Multitudinous Birds of Passage round the cliffs of England throng.
And o'er tempest-trodden Ocean, cloud-entangled day and night,
Birds on birds, in corporate motion, wing a commonwealth in flight.
Waves, like hollow graves beneath them, hoarsely howling, yawn for prey;
And the welkin glooms above them shifting formless, grey in grey.
And across the Bay of Biscay on undaunted wing they flee,
Where mild seas move musically murmuring of the Odyssey;
Where the gurgling whirlpools glitter and by soft Circean Straits,
Fell Charybdis lies in ambush, and the ravenous Scylla waits;
Where a large Homeric laughter lingers in the echoing caves,
And in playful exultation Dolphins leap from dimpling waves;
Where, above the fair Sicilian, flock-browsed, flower-pranked meadows, looms
Ætna--hoariest of Volcanoes--ominously veiled in fumes;
Where the seas roll blue and bluer, high and higher arch the skies,
And as measureless as ocean new horizons meet the eyes;
Where at night the ancient heavens bend above the ancient earth,
With the young-eyed Stars enkindled fresh as at their hour of birth;
Where old Egypt's desert, stretching leagues on leagues of level land,
Gleams with threads of channelled waters, green with palms on either hand;
Where the Fellah strides majestic through the glimmering dourah plain,
And in rosy flames flamingoes rise from rustling sugar-cane;--
On and on, along old Nilus, seeking still an ampler light,
O'er its monumental mountains, Birds of Passage take their flight.
Where the sacred Isle of Philæ, twinned within the sacred stream,
Floats, like some rapt Opium-eater's labyrinthine lotos dream,
Birds on birds take up their quarters in each creviced capital,
In each crack of frieze and cornice, in each cleft of roof and wall.
And within those twilight-litten, holy halls of Death and Birth,
Even the gaily twittering swallows, even the swallows, hush their breath.
And they cast the passing shadows of their palpitating wings
O'er the fallen gods of Egypt and the prostrate heads of Kings.
Even as shadows Birds of Passage cast upon their onward flight
Have men's generations vanished, waned and vanished into night.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Choked
Trees above her, below her, to each side of her
Fog obstructing her view, where should she be?
She cannot tell what day it is any more than she can tell what time it is
Which way should she turn?
The fog swallows her feet
When she thinks she has found the right path, she sees an opening...
Then the fog swallows it
She has been misled again
...and again
......and again
She screams, she’s tired; she is choked by the fog, betrayed by the trees
Feels like she’s been here forever
Trees that don’t talk back anymore
No one is there to guide her
She is lost
The trees and fog are making her second guess every step she makes
Mocking her, humiliating her, laughing at her
At one time she thought they would lead her
Following each way the breeze decided to sway the trees
Going with the fog because where there is fog there is water
Water leads her to place she needs to be
If only the fog was not so thick
if only the trees would talk again
If....If....IF! !
If only she was not lost
The trees and the fog swallows her
Then spits her out when she is nothing more
Nothing is left
Besides a new start
God! Please help me!
poem by Ashley Joyce Forbus
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When April Comes!
When April comes with softly shining eyes,
And daffodils bound in her wind-blown hair,
Oh, she will coax all clouds from out the skies,
And every day will bring some sweet surprise,--
The swallows will come swinging through the air
When April comes!
When April comes with tender smile and tear,
Dear dandelions will gild the common ways,
And at the break of morning we will hear
The piping of the robins crystal clear--
While bobolinks will whistle through the days,
When April comes!
When April comes, the world so wise and old,
Will half forget that it is worn and grey;
Winter will seem but as a tale long told--
Its bitter winds with all its frost and cold
Will be the by-gone things of yesterday,
When April comes!
poem by Virna Sheard
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A Swarm of Swallows
A swarm of swallows turning twittering
tries to reveal with their swishing flight
that a huge thunderstorm is coming
and with electricity the sky is charged pitch black
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Spring Song
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
One more time, I am on cloud nine!
One more time, I am on cloud nine!
To dance Bihu this season…
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The spring breeze acts as my heart stirrer
The Red flowers redden my heart’s colour.
The beats of the Dhol cast its rhythmic flavour..
It rightly awakens some sleeping lover.
“O’ brothers, O’ boys! O’ come O’ girls! ! ”
“O’ brothers, O’ boys! O’O’O’ come O’ girls! ! ”
“Lets dance Bihu holding our hands together”
“Lets dance Bihu holding our hands together”.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
Different castes and community…
It’s a hallmark of Assam’s beauty.
Keeping aside conflicts of ethnicity..
W’ll give Assam, golden identity..
“O’ spring lovers! O’ O’ O’ country lovers! ”
“O’ spring lovers! O’ O’ O’ country lovers! ”
“In this spring, let us pledge together! ”
“In this spring, let us pledge together! ”
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
The cuckoos and the swallows sing the spring song.
They just remind us of spring season.
One more time, I am on cloud nine! !
One more time, I am on cloud nine! !
To dance Bihu this season…
(Originally sung in Assamese as ‘Kuli Ketekiye Eenaley Beenaley’ by Dr. Bhupen Hazarika)
(Set to original tune)
poem by Kamal Jyoti Borah
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Flying lessons for M'lady Ernestine.
The swallows have successfully
raised up their fledging family.
The little ones now have to try
out their wings and learn to fly.
Although at first reluctantly.
They seem to know instinctively,
the freedom of the sky is theirs.
But only for the bird who dares
to leave the nest and try their wings.
Despite the anxious twitterings
of parent birds who have the right.
To watch their first attempt at flight.
They fly because they know they can.
All part of Mother Natures plan.
Sunday,13 June 2010
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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A Summer Elegy
The flowers are now shattered
Their thorns bleed the rose
A Basket full of withered Daisies
Where the wild sunflower still grows;
'Tis a backfall of listless last days
Oh, the grey simply swallows you
Gone are the blistering days of Summer
As Autumns amber breaks in anew;
The shadows growing e'er longer
Gold and russet leaves fly away
Surounded by temporary graves for the Tulip
No where for the Meadow Lark to play;
The morn ' air carries its crispness
While the dew, too soon, becomes frost
Woeful cries stir from all of Nature
In mourning, for Summer Days, now lost;
November 2,2011
By: Theodora Onken
poem by Theodora Onken
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The First Of October
The first of October a beautiful day
And in the blue sky just a few specks of gray
And sunshine on the Parkland and on the park trees
And the warmth of Spring is in the freshening breeze,
The malelucas resplendent in their blossoms of white
And the magpies are piping in the warm sunlight,
The first of October and the capeweed in bloom
And beautiful golden flowers cover the broom,
In the paddock by the wood the grey kangaroos graze
They often venture out of cover on pleasant Spring days,
The first day of the second month of the Spring
And in the woodland nesting birds chirp and sing
And the sun shining brightly in the clear blue sky
And the swallows above the paddocks they sing as they fly.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Swallows
From Jean Pierre Claris Florian
I love to see the swallows come
At my window twittering,
Bringing from their southern home
News of the approaching spring.
'Last year's nest,' they softly say,
'Last year's love again shall see;
Only faithful lovers may
Tell you of the coming glee.'
When the first fell touch of frost
Strips the wood of faded leaves,
Calling all their wingèd host,
The swallows meet above the eaves
'Come away, away,' they cry,
'Winter's snow is hastening;
True hearts winter comes not nigh,
They are ever in the spring.'
If by some unhappy fate,
Victim of a cruel mind,
One is parted from her mate
And within a cage confined,
Swiftly will the swallow die,
Pining for her lover's bower,
And her lover watching nigh
Dies beside her in an hour.
poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Days of Purple Haze
In the month of April they arrive
Across fields they glide and dive
Thousands of insects they devour
Day after day, hour after hour
To and fro in the sky, they soar in hoards
They nest in communal houses and gourds
Their young they hatch and raise
All summer long they hunt under the sun’s blaze
Farmers best friends
Till the growing season ends
In August, millions gather from all the east coast
NJ’s Maurice River marsh is their host
At sunset birders come to see the sight
Of millions of swallows on homeward flight
Now overhead across the evening sky
We watch the birds and say Good Bye
Their long journey south they are startin’
Such is the life of the Purple Martin
poem by Nancy Chambers
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In Winter
It will be long ere 'neath the sunlight dimpling,
The mountain snows melt back to earth's still breast,
Ere swallows build, and wayward brooklets wimpling
O'er pebbly beds, wind by the pewee's nest,
Ere swells the lily's cup, ere transport strong
Thrills in the bluebird's lay,—it will be long!
It will be long ere dews and fresh'ning showers
Descend where latticed roses languid burn,
Ere, pale from exile, nodding wayside flowers
And timid woodland darlings home return,
Ere vesper-sparrows chant their Delphian song,
And larks at sunrise sing,—it will be long!
But though fierce blow the winds through forests shrouded,
Where snows, for leafy verdure, cheerless cling,
Though seas moan wild, and skies are darkly clouded,—
Within the heart that loves 't is always spring!
There memories and hopes, fresh-budding, throng,
And faith forgets that Winter lingers long.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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After the rain
After the rain
the air is full of swallows
swishing up and down
hanging in it
to catch flying white ants
and I see them ascending
and descending twittering.
Some sit as if strung together
right next to each other
on the silver lamp post
and hordes are invited
to the feast of the swallows.
Later when I sit in my study
there is a bird
that that lands on my windowsill
that looks like a parrot to me
and seeing itself in the window
pecks constantly against it
or maybe it’s something else
that I take as a parrot
and its head is scarlet red
up to its neck,
its eyes wide from each other
and its beak is bended
and below the red
its pitch black
and the rest of its body is light green
and I know that it’s too late
for the festival of the other birds
but maybe it would rather have
An apple or two
and every day
I now wait on Polla
or whatever its name is
to come back
to awake me with its knocking
and maybe I will catch him
but it’s rather much better
to be without a cage
and never again to be cooped in.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Weather Reporst Suite Part I
Winter rain, now tell me why, Summers fade, and roses die.
The answer came; the wind and rain.
Golden hills, now veiled in grey, Summer leaves have blown away
Now what remains? The wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings, Knowing,
Like a song that's born to soar the sky, Flowing,
Flowing 'til the waters all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Circle songs and sands of time, and seasons will end in tumbled rhyme,
and little change, the wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings,
Knowing, Like a song that's born to soar the sky,
Flowing, Flowing 'til the rivers all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Winter grey and falling rain, we'll see summer come again,
Darkness falls and seasons change (gonna happen every time).
Same old friends the wind and rain, Summers fade and roses die,
You'll see summer come again, Like a song that's born to soar the sky
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Weather Report Suite Part 1
Winter rain, now tell me why, Summers fade, and roses die.
The answer came; the wind and rain.
Golden hills, now veiled in grey, Summer leaves have blown away
Now what remains? The wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings, Knowing,
Like a song that's born to soar the sky, Flowing,
Flowing 'til the waters all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Circle songs and sands of time, and seasons will end in tumbled rhyme,
and little change, the wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings,
Knowing, Like a song that's born to soar the sky,
Flowing, Flowing 'til the rivers all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Winter grey and falling rain, we'll see summer come again,
Darkness falls and seasons change (gonna happen every time).
Same old friends the wind and rain, Summers fade and roses die,
You'll see summer come again, Like a song that's born to soar the sky.
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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