The Wood By The Sea
I DWELL in the wood that is dark and kind
But afar off tolls the main,
Afar, far off I hear the wind,
And the roving of the rain.
The shade is dark as a palmer's hood,
The air with balm is bland:
But I wish the trees that breathe in the wood
Were ashes in God's hand.
The pines are weary of holding nests,
Are aweary of casting shade;
Wearily smoulder the resin crests
In the pungent gloom of the glade.
Weary are all the birds of sleep,
The nests are weary of wings,
The whole wood yearns to the swaying deep,
The mother of restful things.
The wood is very old and still,
So still when the dead cones fall,
Near in the vale or away on the hill,
You can hear them one and all.
And their falling wearies me;
If mine were the will of God,–oh, then
The wood should tramp to the sounding sea,
Like a marching army of men!
But I dwell in the wood that is dark and kind,
Afar off tolls the main;
Afar, far off I hear the wind
And the roving of the rain.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Sea By The Wood
I DWELL in the sea that is wild and deep,
But afar in a shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
The deeps are green as an emerald's face,
The caves are crystal calm,
But I wish the sea were a little trace
Of moisture in God's palm.
The waves are weary of hiding pearls,
Are aweary of smothering gold,
They would all be air that sweeps and swirls
In the branches manifold.
They are weary of laving the seaman's eyes
With their passion prayer unsaid,
They are weary of sobs and the sudden sighs
And movements of the dead.
All the sea is haunted with human lips
Ashen and sere and gray,
You can hear the sails of the sunken ships
Stir and shiver and sway
In the weary solitude;
If mine were the will of God, the main
Should melt away in the rustling wood
Like a mist that follows the rain.
But I dwell in the sea that is wild and deep
And afar in the shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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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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In The Shade Of The Green Wood
In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.
In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.
In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.
poem by Andrew Blakemore
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Love Song
My love, we will go, we will go, I and you,
And away in the woods we will scatter the dew;
And the salmon behold, and the ousel too,
My love, we will hear, I and you, we will hear,
The calling afar of the doe and the deer.
And the bird in the branches will cry for us clear,
And the cuckoo unseen in his festival mood;
And death, oh my fair one, will never come near
In the bosom afar of the fragrant wood.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Enigma
Some men are born to gather women's tears,
To give a harbour to their timorous fears,
To take them as the dry earth takes the rain,
As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain;
Yet their own tears remain unshed,
Their own tumultuous fears unsaid,
And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the earth
Shaken are they with pain.
They cry for voice as earth might cry for the sea
Or the wood for consuming fire;
Unanswered they remain
Subject to the sorrows of women utterly -
Heart and mind,
Subject as the dry earth to the rain
Or the dark wood to the wind.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Alumni Hall
surrounded by old wood
you breathe wood
and you feel the wood
breathing you too
all around you
in deep sleep
the past comes still dreaming of you
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Variations on a Theme by Joyce
The war is in words and the wood is the world
That turns beneath our rootless feet;
the vines that reach, alive and snarled,
Across the path where the sand is swirled,
Twist in the night. The light lies flat.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
The rain is ruin and our ruin rides
The swiftest winds; the wood is whorled
And turned and smoothed by the turning tides.
--There is rain in the woods, slow rain that breeds
The war in the words. The wood is the world.
This rain is ruin and our ruin rides.
The war is in words and the wood is the world,
Sourceless and seized and forever filled
With green vine twisting on wood more gnarled
Than dead men's hands. The vines are curled
Around these branches, crushed and killed.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
poem by Weldon Kees
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Sea-Saw (more writing fun)
If I saw a wood boat afloat
Upon the sea,
Would what I see possibly be
The wood I cut from a tree?
For when I saw a tree
I would like to think I see,
What the wood I saw
Could be.
If all I saw in wood from a tree
Was all I saw that there was to see,
Would what I did saw
Be the wood that I now see?
And if the wood I once did saw
Was indeed made into that ship on the sea,
Would it even be possible to know that here what I see
Is the wood once sawed by me?
All I here would dare to share is:
I see what I saw, and I saw what I see,
And therefore the wood I do saw could one day be
The boat I may see, afloat upon the sea.
See?
poem by Smoky Hoss
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Red Riding-hood
Into the wood - the dark, dark wood -
Forth went the happy child;
And, in its stillest solitude,
Talked to herself, and smiled;
And closer drew the scarlet Hood
About her ringlets wild.
And now at last she threads the maze,
And now she need not fear;
Frowning, she meets the sudden blaze
Of moonlight falling clear;
Nor trembles she, nor turns, nor stays,
Although the Wolf be near.
poem by Lewis Carroll
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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My Piney Wood
I have a tiny piney wood;
my trees are only fifty,
Yet give me shade and solitude
For they are thick and thrifty.
And every day to me they fling
With largess undenying,
Fat cones to make my kettle sing
And keep my pan a-frying.
Go buy yourself a piney wood
If you have gold for spending,
Where you can dream in mellow mood
With peace and joy unending;
Where you can cheerfully retreat
Beyond all churchly chiding,
And make yourself a temple sweet
Of rapturous abiding.
Oh silence has a secret voice
That claims the soul for portal,
And those who hear it may rejoice
Since they are more than mortal.
So sitting in my piney wood
When soft the owl is winging,
As still as Druid stone I brood . . .
For hark! the stars are singing.
poem by Robert William Service
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The End of the Day
The night darkens fast & the shadows darken,
Clouds & the rain gather about mine house,
Only the wood-dove moans, hearken, O hearken!
The moan of the wood-dove in the rain-wet boughs.
Loneliness & the night! The night is lonely
Star-covered the night takes to a tender breast
Wrapping them in her veil these dark hours only
The weary, the bereaved, the dispossessed.
When will it lighten? Once the night was kindly
Nor all her hours went by leaden & long.
Now in mine house the hours go groping blindly.
After the shiver of dawn, the first bird's song.
Sleep now! The night with wings of splendour swept
Hides heavy eyes from light that they may sleep
Soft & secure, under her gaze so tender
Lest they should wake to weep, should wake to weep.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Poet
'THE blackbird's in the briar,
The seagull's on the ground-
They are nests, and they're more than nests,' he said,
'They are tokens I have found.
There, where the rain-dashed briar
Marks an empty glade,
The blackbird's nest is seen,' he said,
'Clay-rimmed, uncunningly made.
By shore of the inland lake,
Where surgeless water shoves,
The seagulls have their nests,' he said,
'As low as catties' hooves.'
I heard a poet say it,
The sojourner of a night;
His head was up to the rafter,
Where he stood in candles' light.
'Your houses are like the seagulls'
Nests they are scattered and low;
Like the blackbirds' nests in briars,' he said,
'Uncunningly made even so.
But close to the ground are reared
The wings that have widest sway,
And the birds that sing best in the wood,' he said,
'Were reared with breasts to the clay.
You've wildness I've turned it to song;
You've strength I've turned it to wings;
The welkin's for your conquest then,
The wood to your music rings.'
I heard a poet say it,
The sojourner of a night;
His head was up to the rafter,
Where he stood in candles' light.
poem by Padraic Colum
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Premature Rejoicing
What's that over there?
Thiepval Wood.
Take a steady look at it; it'll do you good.
Here, these glasses will help you. See any flowers?
There sleeps Titania (correct - the Wood is ours);
There sleeps Titania in a deep dugout,
Waking, she wonders what all the din's about,
And smiles through her tears, and looks ahead ten years,
And sees the Wood again, and her usual Grenadiers,
All in green,
Music in the moon;
The burnt rubbish you've just seen
Won't beat the Fairy Queen;
All the same, it's a shade too soon
For you to scribble rhymes
In your army book
About those times;
Take another look;
That's where the difficulty is, over there.
poem by Edmund Blunden
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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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Hill slope
Down on the hill slope a tree was there with flowers on it,
Season came and season goes,
it remain there with shade and fruits to give,
Small wood pecker or big owl,
all were there as it was there home to live,
One day a wood cutter found it useful to him,
he thought it to cut and takes its wood to sell in city,
birds and squirrel on tree helplessly saw the tree,
they tried to make noise,
but it didn't affected the woodcutter in the need
he cut down the tree to take the wood,
the tree on hiill slope became log of wood,
weak protest of bird and animals,
on it was not enough,
to save the tree.
tree full of life became silent as saying what was my fault,
is it only there right to live,
but yes its true only humans here,
are powerfull and can do anything to live and win,
hill slope became barren and dry like desert
poor tree however it was home for many
didn't found the place on to live on earth.
the reason it don't understand
why it is weak and meek.not able to
survive and get its right to stay alive to give shade and life to others.
poem by Hemu Gupta
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The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play-
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood-
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.
Over the river, and through the wood-
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurra for the pumpkin pie!
poem by Lydia Maria Francis Child
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Choriambics II
Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void,
lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams vainly in vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove
Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.
I knew
Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you
Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,
White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,
God, immortal and dead!
Therefore I go; never to rest, or win
Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.
poem by Rupert Brooke
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Choriambics-II.
Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams vainly in vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove
Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.
I knew
Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you
Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,
White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,
God, immortal and dead!
Therefore I go; never to rest, or win
Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The First Tooth
There once was a wood, and a very thick wood,
So thick that to walk was as much as you could;
But a sunbeam got in, and the trees understood.
I went to this wood, at the end of the snows,
And as I was walking I saw a primrose;
Only one! Shall I show you the place where it grows?
There once was a house, and a very dark house,
As dark, I believe, as the hole of a mouse,
Or a tree in my wood, at the thick of the boughs.
I went to this house, and I searched it aright,
I opened the chambers, and I found a light;
Only one! Shall I show you this little lamp bright?
There once was a cave, and this very dark cave
One day took a gift from an incoming wave;
And I made up my mind to know what the sea gave.
I took a lit torch, I walked round the ness
When the water was lowest; and in a recess
In my cave was a jewel. Will nobody guess?
O there was a baby, he sat on my knee,
With a pearl in his mouth that was precious to me,
His little dark mouth like my cave of the sea!
I said to my heart, "And my jewel is bright!
He blooms like a primrose! He shines like a light!"
Put your hand in his mouth! Do you feel? He can bite!
poem by William Brighty Rands
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Chanson Sans Paroles
I the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.
Is the wood's dim heart,
And the fragrant pine,
Incense, and a shrine
Of her coming. Apart,
I wait for a sign.
What the sudden hush said,
She will hear, and forsake,
Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!
She will hearken and glide,
From her place of deep rest,
Dove-eyed, with the breast
Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.
I wait for a sign:
The leaves to be waved,
The tall tree-tops laved
In a flood of sunshine,
This world to be saved!
In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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