Edward Thomas

Home 3

Often I had gone this way before
But now it seemed I never could be
And never had been anywhere else;
'Twas home; one nationality
We had, I and the birds that sang,
One memory.

They welcomed me. I had come back
That eve somehow from somewhere far:
The April mist, the chill, the calm,
Meant the same thing familiar
And pleasant to us, and strange too,
Yet with no bar.

The thrush on the oaktop in the lane
Sang his last song, or last but one;
And as he ended, on the elm
Another had but just begun
His last; they knew no more than I
The day was done.

Then past his dark white cottage front
A labourer went along, his tread
Slow, half with weariness, half with ease;
And, through the silence, from his shed
The sound of sawing rounded all
That silence said.

poem by Edward ThomasReport problemRelated quotes
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I woke up to a lullaby

I woke up to a lullaby
The birds sang a song for me
They sang their hearts out all the while
Dancing on the maple tree

Each bird sang a different song
That melted into one
A song full of promises
For the day that’s just begun

They sang of sorrow
Of happiness and mirth
The sang of marriage
And of birth

They sang of people laughing
And of them crying
They sang of sickness
They sang of dying

This little song
They sang for me
Made me think
Made me free

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A Haunting Memory

Wild rockets blew along the lane;
The tall white gentians too were there;
The mullein stalks were brave again;
Of blossoms was the bramble bare;
And toward the pasture bars below
The cows went by me, tinkling slow.

Straight through the sunset flew a thrush,
And sang the only song he knew,
Perched on a ripening elder bush;
(Oh, but to give his song its due!)
Sang it, and ceased, and left it there
To haunt bush, blade, and golden air.

Oh, but to make it plain to you!
My words were wrought for grosser stuff;
To give that lonely tune its due,
Never a word is sweet enough;
A thing to think on when ’twas past,
As is the first rose or the last.

The lad, driving his cows along,
Strode whistling through the windy grass;

The little pool the shrubs among
Lay like a bit of yellow glass;
A window in the farmhouse old,
Turned westward, was of glaring gold.

I have forgotten days and days,
And much well worth the holding fast;
Yet not the look of those green ways,
The bramble with its bloom long past,
The tinkling cows, the scent, the hush—
Still on the eider sings that thrush.

poem by Lizette Woodworth ReeseReport problemRelated quotes
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A Stroll Along Old Memory Lane

A stroll along old memory lane is a thing I do enjoy
And I can hear the songbirds sing in the groves of Lisnaboy
And white butterflies are flitting midst the wildflowers of July
And above the rushy meadow the lark carolling in the sky
A stroll along old memory lane on a bright Summer's day
And from the sunlit meadow the scent of new mown hay
Is so pleasant to the nostrils in the freshening morning breeze
And the temperature a perfect of around 23 degrees
And on the leafy hedgerows the young birds chirp and sing
A stroll along old memory lane is such a pleasant thing
The hum of the wild honeybees the buzzing of the flies
The past from us not distant when we do visualize
And the skylark's song in the sunny sky is a pleasant thing to hear
As you walk along old memory lane in the Summer of the year.

poem by Francis DugganReport problemRelated quotes
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The Poet's Song

I HID in the world and sang,
And I sang so loud and long
That all the ages rang
With the music of my song.
I sang of the earth and sky,
5
I sang of the whispering seas,
I sang of the mountains high,
And I sang of the flowers and trees;
I sang of the early spring,
I sang of the dawning day,
10
I sang, for I had to sing
As the young lambs have to play;
Till heaven and earth were ringing,
And all the people heard,
And they said, "We love his singing,
15
For his song is the song of the bird."

poem by Frederick George ScottReport problemRelated quotes
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Swan Lee

Swan lee got up at the running foot pow-wow,
Heading from the fire to his waiting canoe.
Chattering squaw untied the wigwam door,
The chief blew smoke rings two by two!
The land in silence stands...
Swan lee, his boat by the bank in the darkness,
Loosened the rope in the creek is entwined.
A feather from the wing of a wild young eagle,
Pointed to the land where his fortune he'd find
The land in silence stands
Swan lee paddled on from the land of his fathers,
His eyes scanned the undergrowth on either side.
From the shore hung a hot, heavy, creature infested
Tropic, swan lee had a bow by his side
The land in silence stands
Swan lee kept time, half on land, half on water,
Grizzly bear and raccoon his fare.
He followed his ears to the great water fall,
Swan lee knew deep down that his squaw was there!
The land in silence stands....
Suddenly the rush of the mighty great thunder,
Confronted swan lee as his song he sang,
In the dawn, with his squaw, he was battling homewards
It was all written down by long silas lang.
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands.

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A Song of Enchantment

A song of Enchantment I sang me there,
In a green-green wood, by waters fair,
Just as the words came up to me
I sang it under the wild wood tree.

Widdershins turned I, singing it low,
Watching the wild birds come and go;
No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen
Under the thick-thatched branches green.

Twilight came: silence came:
The planet of Evening's silver flame;
By darkening paths I wandered through
Thickets trembling with drops of dew.

But the music is lost and the words are gone
Of the song I sang as I sat alone,
Ages and ages have fallen on me -
On the wood and the pool and the elder tree.

poem by Walter de la MareReport problemRelated quotes
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On a windy night (in answer to T.S. Eliot)

I. It’s Midnight

It’s Midnight
and the wind brushes softly though my hair,
there are long drawn out shadows everywhere
under the street lamps and the bright light

is stringed out in white
beacon after beacon leading for some to somewhere
but to me it feels as if they are going nowhere,
as if this dark night

is endless without form or shape
and one lonely shadow is following me
while branches are caught in a macabre dance
and there’s a chill at the nape
of my neck and darkness wherever I see
while I walk as if in a trance.


II. Half past one

Half past one
and the spluttering street lump did mutter
“so you had your fun, ”
and no single word did I utter

and at my back fear was crawling
as if in the past night
I had done a unpardonable sin and wind was the singing
“do not look back” and above me the stars was bright

but a strange feeling was in me
as if something evil was following,
as if from it I would never be free
and I glimpsed back, in my daring caught a glance

of something without shadow sneaking behind
and I believed that it as a trick of the mind.


III. It was half-past two

It was half-past two
and while walking through the park
I did not have a clue
where I was going and the night was very dark

and a black thinned out cat sneaked past
with green glowing eyes
as if the tranquillity could not last
and all of the past goodbyes

where coming to my mind
of loved animals, friends and you
as if I was blind and never again to find
the place in the world where I belonged to

and with a leap of delight
the cat found something to eat in that night.


IV. The darkness washed over me

The darkness washed over me
falling like a old worn out cloak
and there were known stars that I could see
but with feelings wanted to choke

and it was half-past three
with a strange familiar howl in the wind
and the cat was eying me
as if in me it had find

a close compatriot
who is also a dweller in the night,
but in life I felt like a idiot
watching the bright

lights of cars passing in the distance,
praying for some kind of deliverance.

V. At four I was chilly


At four I was chilly
and did not want to wait in the park anymore,
the cat was still with me
purring much more in love with me than before

and I carried it while stroking it
as if I had found a new friend
and bit by tiny bit
I liked it and it was no fiend

but a tiny living thing
with shiny bright eyes burning
right through me and the wind did sing
the leaves on branches were still churning

and for a time I had company,
and it was great to be alive with something that loved me.

VI. The memory was crowding me

The memory was crowding me,
as if there was no escape
that on a similar night I did see
a glance of beauty peering from beneath a cape

and then it was somewhat chilly
not like now a summer night
and a strange passion did fill me
to see her full face in the bright light

but into the night she did disappear
with white cheeks and the fire of a eye
as if she was not meant to be near
and now with the sun in a bright sky

with a bird calling on its mate
I see her standing at the garden gate.

[Reference: Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T. S. Eliot.]

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a Poem Of Silence

Silence is a beautiful thing.
no other sound is as great as silence.

Silence is the sound of nothing,
but it is still a sound.
even if a sound is great and amazing,
nothing can top the blissfulness of silence.

not the sound of wind on grass,
not the sound of laughter,
nothing is as beautiful as silence.

silence is a sound, but it is so much
better than any other sound.
What created such a far-off winner?

I love silence, silence is the best.
Never there will be a time that there
will be
a greater sound
than silence.

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Silence Is...

Silence is an absence
Silence is profound
Silence is a conversation
Being had without sound
Silence is an expression
One that cannot be heard
Silence cannot be spoken
Although it is a word
Silence is a presence
Of great nothingness
Silence can be something
And yet cease to exist
Silence can fill a room
And have no mass at all
Silence cannot be dropped, yet it can fall
Silence is a mystery
That will forever go unsolved
Silence is how every sound can swiftly be dissolved
Silence is the sound of rest
The only sound that can sound best
While other sounds can cause great pain
Silence is not the sound to blame
For Silence is what silence is
Something that is nothing
Nothing that exists

poem by Kyle.J CarruthersReport problemRelated quotes
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Of Childhood I Have Such Good Memories

I recall when I was a young boy in my ninth year going on ten
I heard the shy cock pheasant cucking in early Summer in the rushy glen
He was one that I did hear often though him I rarely ever did see
A memory from the mid fifties that lives on in my memory,
I was growing to love Mother Nature even got to know some birds by their song
The chattering voice of the magpie was something one could not get wrong
The familiar song of the chaffinch he sings in my memory today
He sang on the birch tree in the meadow that scented of freshly mown hay,
Of childhood I have such good memories with Nature to me always near
the robin he sang in the woodlet he could be heard all through the year
I lived in an Earthly Utopia at least that's how to me it did seem
The bluebells bloomed close to the hedgerow the dipper he sang in the stream
And with me I carry those memories till death with me they will remain
And often in my flights of fancy I visit my childhood again

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Spring In Lisnaboy

My many walks on memory lane i enjoy
'Twill soon be Spring again in old Lisnaboy
And though March 1 is the first of the calendar Spring
March can be wet and cold and few songbirds do sing.

But April she comes with her hosts of wildflowers
And the nesting birds sing in the mild April showers
And old Lisnaboy at it's best to be seen
And everywhere looking so lush and so green.

And April will fade to the beauty of May
And the swallows above the lush fields all the day
Will sing as they chase flies with young to be fed
In their mud nest on a rafter of some nearby shed

And at dawn before the sun shines in the sky
The skylark to greet the day upwards does fly
And the hawthorns heavy laden in their blossoms of white
In the full bloom of beauty a beautiful sight.

The bloom of lost youth we can never regain
But i do love my walks on memory lane
And a hark to the past is a thing i enjoy
Fond memories of Spring in old Lisnaboy.

poem by Francis DugganReport problemRelated quotes
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Blues In Minor Key

'Twas a lovely night in gay Paree
The stagelight was beating on him and me
He took my heart and spoke so well
And told me things no one else could tell
But far away in a barren tree
The birds sang the blues in a minor key

He was a lonely tramp in the world of rhyme
With words that caught me just in time
I gave him my body I gave him my soul
In front of the stage I played my role
But far away in a barren tree
The birds sang the blues in a minor key

The chimes of freedom rang that night
And stars in heaven were shining bright
The songs he sang were like ice and fire
Leading me through the bush and brier
But far away in a barren tree
The birds sang the blues in a minor key

Behind his mask and behind his name
He left the stage with nothin' to claim
Like a shooting star in the empty skies
Our love was done without any ties
And far away in a barren tree
The birds sang the blues in a minor key

And far away in a barren tree
The birds sang the blues in a minor key....

Copyright © 2011 Göran Gustafsson. All rights reserved

poem by Göran GustafssonReport problemRelated quotes
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Daft Jean

Daft Jean,
The waesome wean,
She cam' by the cottage, she cam' by the ha',
The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw,
The cottar's cot by the birken shaw;
An' aye she gret,
To ilk ane she met,
For the trumpet had blawn an' her lad was awa'.

'Black, black,' sang she,
'Black, black my weeds shall be,
My love has widowed me!
Black, black!' sang she.

Daft Jean,
The waesome wean,
She cam' by the cottage, she cam' by the ha',
The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw,
The cottar's cot by the birken shaw;
Nae mair she creepit,
Nae mair she weepit,

She stept 'mang the lasses the queen o' them a',
The queen o' them a',
The queen o' them a',
She stept 'mang the lasses the queen o' them a'.
For the fight it was fought i' the fiel' far awa',
An' claymore in han' for his love an' his lan',
The lad she lo'ed best he was foremost to fa'.

'White, white,' sang she,
'White, white, my weeds shall be,
I am no widow,' sang she,
'White, white, my wedding shall be,
White, white!' sang she.

Daft Jean,
The waesome wean,
She gaed na' to cottage, she gaed na' to ha',
But forth she creepit,
While a' the house weepit,
Into the snaw i' the eerie night-fa'.

At morn we found her,
The lammies stood round her,
The snaw was her pillow, her sheet was the snaw;
Pale she was lying,
Singing and dying,
A' for the laddie wha fell far awa'.

'White, white,' sang she,
'My love has married me,
White, white, my weeds shall be,
White, white, my wedding shall be,
White, white,' sang she!

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Thomas Hardy

Her Song

I sang that song on Sunday,
To witch an idle while,
I sang that song on Monday,
As fittest to beguile;
I sang it as the year outwore,
And the new slid in;
I thought not what might shape before
Another would begin.

I sang that song in summer,
All unforeknowingly,
To him as a new-comer
From regions strange to me:
I sang it when in afteryears
The shades stretched out,
And paths were faint; and flocking fears
Brought cup-eyed care and doubt.

Sings he that song on Sundays
In some dim land afar,
On Saturdays, or Mondays,
As when the evening star
Glimpsed in upon his bending face
And my hanging hair,
And time untouched me with a trace
Of soul-smart or despair?

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David Ap Gwillam At The Mass Of The Birds

THE Thrush, the Lark, and, chief, the Nightingale,
With one small bird whose name I do not ken,
Offered a Mass; the little bird was clerk,
At intervals he struck his silver bell.
The stars above that were but whitened then
The candles were; the altar was a stone;
Myself was there, with meet observances
Hearing the Mass the birds said in the dell.

It was the Lark who sang in dark's decrease
Kyrie Eleison; then the Nightingale
The Consecration chanted solemnly.
(The silver bell was rung for him in chief.)
And then the Thrush, the dweller in the vale,
Orate Fratres sang how near, how clear!
The Thrush it was who, as the sun appeared,
Held up the Monstrance, a dew-circled leaf!

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The River Sings

The river sings
A voice rises above
Fairer than the water, rings

I know you well
For the river has told
All there is to tell

It sung of a maiden
Fair as the water’s song
Her heart heavy laden

Though she sang
Her song was sorrowed
In voice the sadness rang

No words were needed
The river knew
Her voice it heeded

She walked alone
Her gaiety was lost
River, her only home

She listened to the water
Telling a story
Calling her River Daughter

The river sang, through day and night
Sang for her, the only listener
She joined the song, through dark and light

She called to her lover
Come free me!
Called with song and river

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The Song Is Ended

My thoughts go back to a heavenly dance
A moment of bliss we spent
Our hearts were filled with a song of romance
As into the night we went
And sang to our hearts' content
The song is ended
But the melody lingers on
You and the song are gone
But the melody lingers on
The night was splendid
And the melody seemed to say
"summer will pass away
Take your happiness while you may"
There 'neath the light of the moon
We sang a love song that ended too soon
The moon descended
And i found with the break of dawn
You and the song had gone
But the melody lingers on

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The Song Is Ended

My thoughts go back to a heavenly dance
A moment of bliss we spent
Our hearts were filled with a song of romance
As into the night we went
And sang to our hearts' content
The song is ended
But the melody lingers on
You and the song are gone
But the melody lingers on
The night was splendid
And the melody seemed to say
"summer will pass away
Take your happiness while you may"
There 'neath the light of the moon
We sang a love song that ended too soon
The moon descended
And i found with the break of dawn
You and the song had gone
But the melody lingers on

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A Night Passes In A Silenceless Torment

A night passes in a Silenceless Torment
Even the most beautiful songs
Cannot quell the restlessness-

There are times when one is not born for this
Or any other world-

Dissatisfaction restlessness frustration
Cannot yield the best poetry-

Tormented songs repeat themselves
What was once beautiful
Now irritates as relentless noise-

There is the need for a different kind of beauty
A song from within that no external song can give-

I want silence
No other song
Only silence
Silence and more silence
A poetry of silence
Or even a silence without poetry
Silence
The kind of silence in which the torment has ended
Sleep perhaps
Silence silence
Please.

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Wallace Stevens

The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

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