Morning
GRAY-VESTED Dawn, with flameless, tranquil eye,
Cool hands, and dewy lips, is in the sky,
A sober nun, with starry rosary.
With eyes downcast and with uplifted palm,
She seems to whisper now her silent psalm;
Beneath her gaze the sleeping earth is calm.
Her prayer is ended, and she riseth slow,
And o'er the hills she quietly doth go,
Noiseless and gentle as the midnight snow.
Then suddenly the pale-east blushes red,
The flowers to see upraise a sleepy head,
The rosy colors deepen, grow, and spread.
A cool breeze whispers: 'She is coming now!'
And then the radiant colors burn and glow,
The white cast blushes over cheek and brow,
And glorious on the hills the Morning stands,
Her saffron hair back-blown from rosy bands,
And light and joy and fragrance in her hands.
Her foot has touched the hill-tops, and they shine;
She comes,— the willow rustles and the pine;
She smiles upon the fields a smile divine,
And all the earth smiles back; from mount to vale,
From oak to shuddering grass, from glen to dale,
Wet fields and flowers and glistening brooks cry 'Hail!'
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Twice The Maple Blushes
O, twice the maple blushes, blushes rosy, rosy red;
She blushes in the Spring-time,
When aroused from Winter's sleep,
She finds herself all naked
And the gaping world apeep,
O, then the maple blushes, blushes rosy, rosy red.
Once again the maple blushes, blushes rosy, rosy red;
She blushes in the Autumn,
When she lays her robes aside
For the long, long sleep of Winter,
And finds naught 'neath which to hide,
O, then the maple blushes, blushes rosy, rosy red.
poem by James Edwin Campbell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Vincent
starry starry night
paint your palette blue and gray
look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the darkness in my soul
shadows on the hill
sketch the trees and daffodils
catch the breeze and the winter chills
in colors on the snowy linen land
now i understand
what you tried to say to me
and how you suffered you sanity
and how you tried to set them free
they would not listen they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now
starry starry night
flaming flowers that brightly blaze
swirling clouds in violet haze
reflect in vincent's eyes of china blue
colors changing hue
morning fields of amber grain
weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand
now i understand
what you tried to say to me
they did not listen they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now
starry starry night
song performed by by Vonda Shepard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Despair
SMILE on me, mouth of red--so much too red,
Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade,
Turn, turn my way, oh glorious golden head,
My soul is lost, then let the price be paid!
Amid rich flowers your rosy lamplight gleams,
Amid rich hangings pass your scented hours,
And woods and fields are green but in my dreams,
And only in my dreams grow meadow-flowers.
I have forgotten everything but you--
The apple orchard where the whitethroat sings,
The quiet fields, the moonlight, and the dew,
The virgin's bower that in wet hedgerow clings.
I have forgotten how the cool grass waves
Where clean winds blow, and where good women pray
For happy, honest men, safe in their graves;
And--oh, my God! I would I were as they!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Bird's Release
Go forth, for she is gone!
With the golden light of her wavy hair,
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!
Her voice hath pass'd away!
It hath pass'd away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.
Go forth, and like her be free!
With thy radiant wing, and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?
Is it aught ev'n to her we mourn?
Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o'er her gentle head,
Or float on the light wind borne?
We know not-but she is gone!
Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;-
-She hath left her dwelling lone!
When the waves at sunset shine,
We may hear thy voice, amidst thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore,
But we shall not know 'tis thine!
Ev'n so with the lov'd one flown!
Her smile in the starlight may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind's low sigh,
Around us-but all unknown.
Go forth, we have loos'd thy chain!
We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers,
Which the bright day rears in our eastern bowers,
But thou wilt not be lur'd again.
Ev'n thus may the summer pour
All fragrant things on the land's green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be dress'd,
But it wins her back no more!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Bliss
Cascading waterfall,
Sound of rainfall
On the windshield.
Terraced fields
Majestic deodars,
A little afar,
So high
Reaching for the sky.
Clouds so low,
Grass covered with snow.
Cool whispering breeze,
Hot cups of tea
On the wayside stall.
Tightly wrapped shawl,
Gurgling river,
Emerald water,
Verdant hills,
Dancing leaves,
Hill folks’ rosy cheeks
Climbing with ease.
Moving at an even pace,
Serene and calm face.
Waving with a smile
Without guile.
Inner peace
Silence speaks.
As we drive,
I realise,
Heaven and bliss
Still exist.
poem by Mamta Agarwal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Earlier Poems : The Spirit Of Poetry
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Spirit of Poetry, The
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Wings
DAWN opes her pensive eyes,
In the yet starry skies,
A roseate blush upon her cheek and brows.
Her purple mantle still
Lies on the sky-kissed hill,
And a blue, solemn shade thereon it throws.
The earth lies hushed and calm.
No chant of praise, no psalm
Riseth to greet the rose-crowned queen of day.
Each blade of grass, each leaf,
Stands out in sharp relief,
Against the rayless blue and silver gray.
All nature seems to wait
For some new deed of Fate;
The silence is a sacred, reverent prayer,—
When hark! from some sweet throat
One thrilling, quivering note
Fills with its tremulous music all the air.
Then from the dewy grass
A tiny form doth pass,
A little soul all music and all wings.
All nature's voice is heard,
Embodied in this bird,
That darteth up and, rising, ever sings.
It mounteth still and sings:
What soul yearns not for wings,
To follow after, burst its prison bars,
And learn the secret there,
In those clear realms of air,
The secret of the rainbow and the stars;
To rush as swift as light,
Within those regions bright
Of throbbing, scintillant, intensest blue;
The air all breathless cleave,
And far below to leave
Regrets and tears, the raindrop and the dew.
Ah! caged 'mongst meaner things,
The soul can use no wings,
And beats against the bars it cannot pass;
But it might humbly turn,
Essaying first to learn
The secret of the flowers and the grass.
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sleeping Out: Full Moon
They sleep within. . . .
I cower to the earth, I waking, I only.
High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.
We have slept too long, who can hardly win
The white one flame, and the night-long crying;
The viewless passers; the world's low sighing
With desire, with yearning,
To the fire unburning,
To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . .
Helpless I lie.
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
All the earth grows fire,
White lips of desire
Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things.
Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways,
Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands,
The gracious presence of friendly hands,
Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays,
Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise
Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries,
To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height,
To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes,
And the laughter, and the lips, of light.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Flowers Know
As the sun rises with its glorious glow,
Flowers awake because they know
They will be guided throughout the day
If they transfix on every ray.
So they smile and leave all beautified
With rainbow colors far and wide.
Their delicate pedals gaze at the sky,
Tracing the sun’s path as it passes by.
With evening’s approach they close their eyes
And patiently await next early rise.
Though their time to wilt is soon from birth,
Flowers know their place on this earth.
Their radiance gives life to a world often void
Of warmth they display since it’s seldom enjoyed.
So get acquainted with their momentary glow.
Appreciate this earth that flowers so well know.
poem by Gregory Huyette
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Vincent
Starry, starry night:
Paint your palette blue and gray.
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills.
Sketch the trees and the daffodils;
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land.
Now i understand
What you tried to say to me,
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen; they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.
Starry, starry night:
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze;
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue:
Morning fields of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.
Now i understand
What you tried to say to me,
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen; they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.
For they could not love you
But still, your love was true.
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do.
But i could've told you, vincent:
This world was never meant
For one as beautiful as you.
Starry, starry night:
Portraits hung in empty halls:
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget;
Like the strangers that you've met:
The ragged men in ragged clothes.
The silver thorn, a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now i think i know
What you tried to say to me,
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen; they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will.
song performed by by Don McLean
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Sestina
I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.
And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.
When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.
Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.
I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.
The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.
Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.
poem by Dante Alighieri
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Red House
On the wide fields the water gleams like snow,
And snow like water pale beneath pale sky,
When old and burdened the white clouds are stooped low.
Sudden as thought, or startled near bird's cry,
The whiteness of first light on hills of snow
New dropped from skiey hills of tumbling white
Streams from the ridge to where the long woods lie;
And tall ridge-trees lift their soft crowns of white
Above slim bodies all black or flecked with snow.
By the tossed foam of the not yet frozen brook
Black pigs go straggling over fields of snow;
The air is full of snow, and starling and rook
Are blacker amid the myriad streams of light.
Warm as old fire the Red House burns yet bright
Beneath the unmelting snows of pine and larch,
While February moves as slow, as slow
As Spring might never come, never come March.
Amid such snows, by generations haunted,
By echoes, memories and dreams enchanted,
Firm when dark winds through the night stamp and shout,
Brightest when time silvers the world all about,
That old house called _The Heart_ burns, burns, and still
Outbraves the mortal threat of the hanging hill.
poem by John Freeman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sunset On The Bearcamp
A gold fringe on the purpling hem
Of hills the river runs,
As down its long, green valley falls
The last of summer's suns.
Along its tawny gravel-bed
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
As if its meadow levels felt
The hurry of the hill,
Noiseless between its banks of green
From curve to curve it slips;
The drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.
A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
Unstoried and unknown;
The ursine legend of its name
Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
As ever Yarrow knew,
Or, under rainy Irish skies,
By Spenser's Mulla grew;
And through the gaps of leaning trees
Its mountain cradle shows
The gold against the amethyst,
The green against the rose.
Touched by a light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God's great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
Is softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no leaf
Of all its elms is twirled
The silence of eternity
Seems falling on the world.
The pause before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this;
Yon miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills
That reach up stair on stair?
What eyes look through, what white wings fan
These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the heavenly heights
To those of earth stoops down?
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods
On Ida's snowy crown!
Slow fades the vision of the sky,
The golden water pales,
And over all the valley-land
A gray-winged vapor sails.
I go the common way of all;
The sunset fires will burn,
The flowers will blow, the river flow,
When I no more return.
No whisper from the mountain pine
Nor lapsing stream shall tell
The stranger, treading where I tread,
Of him who loved them well.
But beauty seen is never lost,
God's colors all are fast;
The glory of this sunset heaven
Into my soul has passed,
A sense of gladness unconfined
To mortal date or clime;
As the soul liveth, it shall live
Beyond the years of time.
Beside the mystic asphodels
Shall bloom the home-born flowers,
And new horizons flush and glow
With sunset hues of ours.
Farewell! these smiling hills must wear
Too soon their wintry frown,
And snow-cold winds from off them shake
The maple's red leaves down.
But I shall see a summer sun
Still setting broad and low;
The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,
The golden water flow.
A lover's claim is mine on all
I see to have and hold,--
The rose-light of perpetual hills,
And sunsets never cold!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Mountaineer-Song
BLOW, mountain-breeze! all wild, like thee,
Unfetter'd as thy wing, I rove;
With airy step and spirit free,
From snowy cliff, to shadowy grove!
And teach lone echoes to prolong,
From Caves remote, my sprightly song,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
No sigh for pomp or state I breathe,
For me, the sun-beam smiles in gold!
I envy not the victor's wreath,
For me the Alpine flow'rs unfold!
Gay, simple, free, I rove along,
And wood and hill resound my song,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
When morning wakes, with humid eye,
And cheek that kindling, bright'ning, glows;
When the soft blushes of the sky,
With roseate lustre tinge the snows;
I lead my flocks, I leave my home,
And carol gaily as I roam,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
When fervid beams of noon invade,
And bloom and verdure faint with heat;
The palm, the pine, the cedar-shade,
Afford me still a cool retreat!
Where shelter'd from th' oppressive ray,
I wake soft echoes with my lay,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
Deep in a glen, retir'd and green,
How sweetly smiles my native cot;
Where peace, and joy, and love serene,
Have sanctified the tranquil spot!
How blest! there ever to remain,
And warble still th' untutor'd strain,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
In rich festoons, the mantling vine,
Embow'ring, o'er its casement waves;
And bloomy clusters dangling, shine,
Thro' tendrils and luxuriant leaves—
While, as I train each wayward spray,
I carol still the artless lay,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
Mine is the breath of zephyr pure,
The Alpine sweet that scents the gale;
The slumber light, the life secure,
The boundless range of hill and dale!
Fearless I rove, exploring, free,
Spirit of air! all wild like thee,
Blow, mountain-breeze!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Song III
FROM THE FRENCH.
I.
'AH! say,' the fair Louisa cried,
'Say where the abode of Love is found?'
Pervading nature, I replied,
His influence spreads the world around.
When Morning's arrowy beams arise,
He sparkles in the enlivening ray,
And blushes in the glowing skies
When rosy evening fades away.
II.
The summer winds that gently blow,
The flocks that bleat along the glades,
The nightingale, that soft and low,
With music fills the listening shades:
The murmurs of the silver surf
All echo Love's enchanting notes,
From violets lurking in the turf,
His balmy breath through ether floats.
III.
From perfumed flowers and dewy leaves
Delicious scents he bids exhale,
He smiles amid autumnal sheaves,
And clothes with green the grassy vale;
But when that throne the god assumes
Where his most powerful influence lies,
'Tis on Louisa's cheek he blooms,
And lightens from her radiant eyes!
poem by Charlotte Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Aurora Borealis
O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
That never brightens unto day;
Ere earth's mirk pale once more be drawn
Let us look out beyond the gray.
It is just midnight by the clock--
There is no sound on glen or hill,
The moaning linn adown its rock
Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.
Austere against the kindling sky
Yon broken turret blacker grows;
Harsh light, to show remorselessly
Ruins night hid in kind repose!
Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
As waking upon northern hills
She smiles to find herself new-born,--
Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
That many an hour must come and go
Before the pale November day
Break in the east, forlorn and slow.
Yet blest one gleam--one gleam like this,
When all heaven brightens in our sight,
And the long night that was and is
And shall be, vanishes in light:
O blest one hour like this! to rise
And see grief's shadows backward roll;
While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
The glad Aurora of the soul.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Night Coming Out Of A Garden
Through the still air of night
Suddenly comes, alone and shrill,
Like the far-off voice of the distant light,
The single piping trill
Of a bird that has caught the scent of the dawn,
And knows that the night is over ;
(She has poured her dews on the velvet lawn
And drenched the long grass and the clover),
And now with her naked white feet
She is silently passing away,
Out of the garden and into the street,
Over the long yellow fields of the wheat,
Till she melts in the arms of the day.
And from the great gates of the East,
With a clang and a brazen blare,
Forth from the rosy wine and the feast
Comes the god with the flame-flaked hair ;
The hoofs of his horses ring
On the golden stones, and the wheels
Of his chariot burn and sing,
And the earth beneath him reels;
And forth with a rush and a rout
His myriad angels run,
And the world is awake with a shout,
' He is coming ! The sun ! The sun ! '
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Twilight In The North
O THE long northern twilight between the day and the night,
When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite:
When the hills grow dim as dreams, and the crystal river seems
Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessèd walk in white.
O the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,
When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way:
And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar
Warns of sleep, and dark, and midnight--of oblivion and decay.
O the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,
And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one:
And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies,--
Earth sleeps--but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.
O the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,
When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:
And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light,--
You would think 't was dawn come back again--but the light is in the west.
O the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!--
Ere the rains sweep o'er the hillsides, and the waters rise and roll,
In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm--
In the still norther twilight, Azrael, take my soul.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Winter Day
I
The air is silent save where stirs
A bugling breeze among the firs;
The virgin world in white array
Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;
All heaven blooms rarely in the east
Where skies are silvery and fleeced,
And o'er the orient hills made glad
The morning comes in wonder clad;
Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see
How beautiful the dawn can be!
II
Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendor crowns the woods
And bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter's day.
III
Faint music rings in wold and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow;
Beyond a valley dim and far
Lit by an occidental star,
Tall pines the marge of day beset
Like many a slender minaret,
Whence priest-like winds on crystal air
Summon the reverent world to prayer.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!