While the woods were green
WHILE the woods were green,
'Oh I' she sang, 'my heart is new,
Leaping, longing, in my breast:
Let him come that loves me true,
Let him come that I love best,
I will tell him what I mean,
Now the wood-birds tell it too,
Now the woods are green.'
While the woods were bare,
'Oh I' she sighed, 'my heart is grey,
Shrinking, shivering, in my breast:
Love me, hate me, as they may,
None of them do I love best:
Let me be alone with care,
Now the wood-birds hide away,
Now the woods are bare.'
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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The Green Woods Of Truagh
In the green woods of Truagh we met without fear,
Your kiss on my lips, and your voice in my ear,
Your tender arms about me, and your eyes glad and clear–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh the days go on wings,
On every brown branch a gladsome bird sings
And the fragrant amber blossom of the honey-suckle swings–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh the bracken stands high,
And wells of spring-water in deep hollows lie,
And the red deer is browsing in the cool shadows nigh–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh no sorrow dared stay,
The lark called me early at dawn o' the day,
And o'er my sleep at night pleasant dreams used to play–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh you wait till I come–
I left home and you for the stranger's far home,
To bring a hoard of yellow gold across the grey foam–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh–if God hears my prayer–
I shall reach you, O true love, my empty hands there,
For little of the yellow gold has fallen to my share–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh–your heart on my own,
And your bright hair in ringlets across my cheek blown
Now where in all the wide, wide world, could greater bliss be known?
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
poem by Anna Johnston MacManus
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Cuckoo!
In woods so long time bare
Cuckoo!
Up and in the wood, I know not where
Two notes fall.
Yet I do not envy him at all
His phantasy.
Cuckoo!
I too,
Somewhere,
I have sung as merrily as he
Who can dare,
Small and careless love, so to laugh at care,
And who
Can call
Cuckoo!
In woods of winter weary,
In scented woods, of winter weary, call
Cuckoo!
In woods so long time bare.
poem by Hilaire Belloc
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The Fight Goes On The Fight Must Never End
The woman conservationists admire
She fights to save the trees of Sherbrooke Shire
A staunch member of the 'Save The Dandenongs Team'
The fight is on to keep the mountain green.
To woods and all green places she's a friend
And the fight goes on the fight must never end
The verbal war the unending war of words
To save the woods and hedgerows for the birds.
The fight is on to save the greenery
To save green places and each precious tree
For future generations to enjoy
The fight goes on and the heated words still fly.
The developer say we'll cut the forest down
And replace the scrubland with a concrete town
But the conservationists keep getting in their way
The woods were always here and the woods will stay.
And the Margaret Douglas's of this world too rare
And the developers too many everywhere
To woods and all green places she's a friend
And the fight goes on the fight must never end.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Voice
Safe in the magic of my woods
I lay, and watched the dying light.
Faint in the pale high solitudes,
And washed with rain and veiled by night,
Silver and blue and green were showing.
And the dark woods grew darker still;
And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;
And quietness crept up the hill;
And no wind was blowing
And I knew
That this was the hour of knowing,
And the night and the woods and you
Were one together, and I should find
Soon in the silence the hidden key
Of all that had hurt and puzzled me -
Why you were you, and the night was kind,
And the woods were part of the heart of me.
And there I waited breathlessly,
Alone; and slowly the holy three,
The three that I loved, together grew
One, in the hour of knowing,
Night, and the woods, and you -
And suddenly
There was an uproar in my woods,
The noise of a fool in mock distress,
Crashing and laughing and blindly going,
Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,
And a Voice profaning the solitudes.
The spell was broken, the key denied me
And at length your flat clear voice beside me
Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.
You came and quacked beside me in the wood.
You said, 'The view from here is very good!'
You said, 'It's nice to be alone a bit!'
And, 'How the days are drawing out!' you said.
You said, 'The sunset's pretty, isn't it?'
* * * * *
By God! I wish - I wish that you were dead!
poem by Rupert Brooke (1909)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Tiger in the wood
There is a tiger in the woods
With such an attitude
There is a tiger in the woods
Do not stay out there in the nude
There is a tiger in the woods
Alternating between humble and rude
There is a tiger in the woods
Looking for its prey, so pray
Soon will be injurious what was once good
Ready and steady he sets about to slay
The brave who protrude along his way
There is a tiger in the wood
Thinking about you as food
A known serial killer
Seeking a bestial thriller
There is a tiger in the wood
Whose beautiful stripes, I conclude
Put you off guard. Understood?
Such display, I call the tiger’s interlude.
Copyright 2006 - Sylvia Chidi
poem by Sylvia Chidi
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Voice, The
Safe in the magic of my woods
I lay, and watched the dying light.
Faint in the pale high solitudes,
And washed with rain and veiled by night,
Silver and blue and green were showing.
And the dark woods grew darker still;
And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;
And quietness crept up the hill;
And no wind was blowing
And I knew
That this was the hour of knowing,
And the night and the woods and you
Were one together, and I should find
Soon in the silence the hidden key
Of all that had hurt and puzzled me --
Why you were you, and the night was kind,
And the woods were part of the heart of me.
And there I waited breathlessly,
Alone; and slowly the holy three,
The three that I loved, together grew
One, in the hour of knowing,
Night, and the woods, and you ----
And suddenly
There was an uproar in my woods,
The noise of a fool in mock distress,
Crashing and laughing and blindly going,
Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,
And a Voice profaning the solitudes.
The spell was broken, the key denied me
And at length your flat clear voice beside me
Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.
You came and quacked beside me in the wood.
You said, "The view from here is very good!"
You said, "It's nice to be alone a bit!"
And, "How the days are drawing out!" you said.
You said, "The sunset's pretty, isn't it?"
* * * * *
By God! I wish -- I wish that you were dead!
poem by Rupert Brooke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Voice of Love
After a long solitary confinement
In deep love for someone
I heard a song
A song in the woods
Where I stood
The woods which stood in the solitude
There was nobody
Nobody except me
Nobody heard the song
Which rapped in the woods
Somewhere, but I didn't know where
The song I heard wasn't raspy
Neither soft nor melodious
The song I heard was heart-strucken'd
There was a tone
A tune where you can find
A rapt of love.
The song has given pathogen in me
Who's that guy?
Singing in love
Crying and dying in love?
I listened to the song carefully
Now I found
The lonely woods are in me
And the song I heard
was the voice
The voice of love in me.
poem by D'menz Veen
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Who Goes Amid the Green Wood
Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?
Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?
The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire -- -
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?
O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear -- -
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair.
poem by James Joyce
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The Woods
My sorrow lives in the woods.
I cannot complain to anyone.
I must bear it to the woods
in the deepest loneliness.
If ever in future times
someone comes for that reason
he can find in the woods
the shy sorrow of my heart.
When he sees far off in the woods,
alone and quiet,
the deepest shadows lying,
that is my somber sorrow
poem by James Comerford
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A Ballad Of The Trees And The Master
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him -- last
When out of the woods He came.
poem by Sidney Lanier
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Forest Moods
There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the listening solitudes,
Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,
And all the notes of their throats are true.
The thrush from the innermost ash takes on
A tender dream of the treasured and gone;
But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer
Of the might and light of the present and here.
There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,
The roseate bell and the lily are there,
And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.
Careless and bold, without dream of woe,
The trilliums scatter their flags of snow;
But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,
Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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A Line-Storm Song
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
poem by Robert Frost
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Song II
A MONTH of green and tender May,
All woods and walks awake with flowers,
Wide sunlit meadows for the day,
And moon-bathed paths for evening hours;
A bright brief dream that had no past,
And of the future knew no fear;
A kiss at first, a sigh at last--
Only last year.
Another spring, dim soulless woods;
No farewell kiss, no parting tear;
No stone to mark where silence broods
O'er the dead love we found so dear.
But, oh, to me the green seems grey,
The budding branches all are sere,
For sweet love's sake, that died one day,
Only last year.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Through the branch net [Prin a ramurilor mreajă]
Through the branch net, all along,
One can hear a charming song
Fondling all the ears that lie
By the linden old and high...
Through the leaves, when dies the day,
Tries the moon to make its way,
It's so beautiful and bright
And sheds down its gleams of light.
Start the trumpets to sound soon;
As the disk of the sweet moon
Passes over glades and trees,
Trumpet notes flow with much ease.
The green woods will answer then
And my soul gets lost again,
Grieved, but also filled with grace,
When I think of your nice face.
And the birds will sing above
Showing all their care and love,
Chirping in the woods and thus
Laughing at or... pitying us.
poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by anonym
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Marriage Morning
Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
Oh, the woods and the meadows,
Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!
Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning start.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood,
Oh, lighten into my eyes and heart,
Into my heart and my blood!
Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O' heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers,
Over the meadow and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash for a million miles.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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The Way Through the Woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The lonely woods
In the lonely woods do I roam,
I get a good glimpse of everything,
when I walk through the lonely woods, and a sad song I sing.
I see a pretty bird's wing,
so beautiful, so shiny, like that of a silver ring.
I walk near a small stream,
and when I am tired, I stop near it, sleep and dream.
All around me is silence, there is no hatred and there is no violence.
this is what I like in the woods, the lonely woods,
so silent, so calm,
to me, the trees, and the animals, there is no harm,
this is the lonely woods.
poem by Savio Vogt
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Whose Words These Are Only God Knows
WHOSE WOODS THESE ARE ONLY GOD KNOWS
Whose woods these are only God knows
Sparse and bare the trees
A pleasant morning in the hottest time of the year-
My task here is no more-
The man I took care of for one year and one half is in his grave
His kind and good wife said goodbye
With a gift for my daughter and her child
And a compensation check for me.
What Promises are there for me to keep now?
In these last years
Before I too fade and die?
The woods are light and small
And the Developers will soon be here-
I look up out at the Hill of the Holy city
A soft calm wind blows-
Never have I been so still inside-
And miles to go before I sleep?
The City sad and light and deep.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Brignall Banks
O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there,
Would grace a summer queen:
And as I rode by Dalton Hall,
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily:—
'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.'
'If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we,
That dwell by dale and down:
And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,
Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed
As blithe as Queen of May.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.
'I read you by your bugle horn
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a Ranger sworn
To keep the King's green-wood.'
'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay!
I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!
'With burnish'd brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,
I read you for a bold Dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.'
'I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.
'And O! though Brignall banks be fair,
And Greta woods be gay,
Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
Would reign my Queen of May!
'Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!
And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the green-wood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.'
Chorus.
Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather flowers there
Would grace a summer queen.
poem by Sir Walter Scott
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