The Plains
WIDE are the plains—the plains that stretch to the west
An ocean of trackless waste, untrodden and rude,
Where an Austral sun flings fire on earth’s bare breast,
Brazen skies o’erhanging a treeless solitude.
Wild are the plains—the plains that shimmer and surge,
Leagues of billowy grass like an angry sea,
Bend ’neath the storm-wind, chanting its mystic dirge—
The wind that knows no Lord—Lord of ocean or lea.
Calm are the plains—when the moon’s clear beams are shed
And the wilds lie hushed, all shrouded in silver-grey,
And Nature sinks to rest like one whose life has fled,
E’en as a bride lying dead in her bridal array.
Weird are the plains—the plains that wait for the dawn
When the shadowy darkness strives with the sickly light,
And the battle hangs in the balance, finely drawn,
Till the spears of morning pierce through the mail of night.
Who shall hear, O Nature, messages thou wouldst send
In thy desolate places, far from the moving throng?
Ah, but the soul that loveth thee best may comprehend,
The voice of the silence speaketh louder than song!
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Desert Plains
Full moon is rising
The sky is black
I need your call Im coming back
The road is straight cast
Winds in my eyes
The engine roars between my thighs
From desert plains I bring you love
From desert plains I bring you love
Wild mountain thunder
Echoes my quest
My body aches but Ill not rest
Quartz light to guide me
Till sunrise leads
My passion screams, my heart it bleeds
From desert plains I bring you love
From desert plains I bring you love
Then in the distance
I see you stand
On the horizon you raise your hand
In burning rubber
I end my quest
You fall into my arms at last
From desert plains I bring you love
From desert plains I bring you love
song performed by by Judas Priest
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Christmas For Cowboys
Tall in the saddle, we spend christmas day, driving the cattle on the snow
Covered-plains.
All of the good gifts given today, ours is the sky and the wide open range.
Back in the city they have different ways, football and eggnog and christmas
Parades.
Ill take the blanket, Ill take the reins, christmas for cowboys and wide-open
Plains.
A campfire for warmth as we stop for the night, the stars overhead are
Christmas tree lights.
The wind sings a hymn as we bow down to pray, christmas for cowboys and
Wide-open plains.
Tall in the saddle we spend christmas day, driving the cattle on the
Snow-covered plains.
So many gifts have been opened today, ours is the sky and the wide open range.
Its christmas for cowboys and wide open plains.
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
From Loraine
I have seen the plains lying baked and bare,
When drought and famine hold revel there,
And the cattle sink where the rotting shoals
Of the fish float dead in the waterholes.
I have seen the plains when the flood brings down
The leagues of its waters, sullen and brown,
When only the tops of the swaying trees
Mark the creek that wound thro’ the level leas,
And all is a sea to the straining eyes
Save some lonely hut on a distant rise.
I have seen the plains in the mad delight
Of the racing flames in their crimson flight,
When the whip of the wind will not stay or spare,
And woe to the rider who lingers there!
But, O! the plains when their beauty burst
On our wondering eyes as we crossed them first!
When the sun shone bright and a soft wind blew,
And the sky was clear with a fairy hue,
And afar, like an isle in a sea of mist,
Rose a mountain cap, as of amethyst.
And the big-horned cattle, knee-deep in grass,
Wheeled scattered legions to watch us pass,
As we drifted onwards from group to group;
And swift as a bolt came the wild hawk’s swoop,
When the brown quail whirled ’neath our horses’ feet
Or the bronzewing broke from his ground retreat
And the lazy bustard on laggard wing
Out of easy gunshot was loitering;
And for miles around us, at daylight’s close,
The little flock pigeons in coveys rose,
And the squadrons flew, with a gathering force,
Till an army darkened the watercourse.
Thus we crossed the plains to their utmost rim,
To the timbered belts round the mountains grim,
Chain upon chain, to the north and west,
Rose the swelling ridge and the purple crest,
And the gorges hid from the light of God
Where the foot of a white man had never trod.
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Wolf Song
Twas a night - one night in far away plains
the wolves sat in
half circles
howling away to the moon shine.
The wind whispers, the wolf howll:
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
In far away plains moon shines
through thick fog of darknesss-
orange glows thinly in silence-
wolves wonder the far away plains;
under the moon shine.
The wind whispers, the wolf howl:
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
A pale glow plays teasingly
in the dark sky.
Stars hang dangling near water's edge.
The wind blows blows away the pale glow
and thick fog covers lightly
and soon
the wind whispers, the wolves howl:
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
shh ahooo shh ahooo shh ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo ahooo
poem by Celine Berghmans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Australian Scenery
The Mountains
A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go
By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow
And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below.
A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake
As those who sit by a dead campfire, and wait for the dawn to break,
Or those who watched by the Holy Cross for the dead Redeemer's sake.
A land where silence lies so deep that sound itself is dead
And a gaunt grey bird, like a homeless soul, drifts, noiseless, overhead
And the world's great story is left untold, and the message is left unsaid.
The Plains
A land as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow
Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go
Like shifting symbols of hope deferred -- land where you never know.
Land of plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance,
Feast or famine, or hope or fear, and in all things land of chance,
Where Nature pampers or Nature slays, in her ruthless, red, romance.
And we catch a sound of a fairy's song, as the wind goes whipping by,
Or a scent like incense drifts along from the herbage ripe and dry
-- Or the dust storms dance on their ballroom floor, where the bones of the cattle lie.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Kansa
People of the Wind:
a fitting name
for those who lived
on the windy plains.
People of the wind
live in Oklahoma now
but their name was claimed
by the center state.
Flying with the wind
when horses came
they roamed
the hills and valleys
of the place
that took their name:
The People of the Wind
on the windy plains.
poem by Duane L. Herrmann
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Back To My Childhood
My childhood was the best days I spent
With my besy mates and friends.
But when I turned back,
They had been the days of disappearance.
Where are all the mates,
I played with?
Where are all the laughs,
I laughed?
All the cares I have taken,
Have they vanished?
The whole world has changed
Without any signs of replacement.
The mountains have become deserts
The deserts have become plains
The plains have become,
The place of sadness
Where there is no sight of happiness.
So never look back in your childhood
The only remains
Will be the plains.
poem by Purna Vindhya
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Native Companions Dancing
On the blue plains in wintry days
The stately birds move in the dance.
Keen eyes have they, and quaint old ways
On the blue plains in wintry days.
The Wind, their unseen Piper, plays,
They strut, salute, reatreat, advance;
On the blue plains, in wintry days,
These stately birds move in the dance
poem by John Shaw Neilson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Drover Of The Stars
IT is little I care for earth's kings,
Its emperors, sultans and czars,
As I lie in the darkness and dream
All alone with my sheep and the stars.
For as dust of the moment are they,
Now agleam and now still on earth's breast;
But the stars, spreading wide in the night,
Travel on, ever on to the west.
My sheep, snugly camped in the dark,
Misty-white with the pale grasses blend;
But where is the camp of the stars?
And whither, O Night, do they wend?
Through leagues of dry distance we came,
Where dust-wreaths, wind-woven, upcurled,
Since Dawn dropped the rails of the east
And let the Day into our world.
Slow-moving we travelled the plains,
Trudging on through the sun and the wind,
Till Day galloped out of the west,
And Night set the sliprails behind.
And now, by my camp-fire alone,
A tryst with pale Wonder I keep —
That mystical Lady of Dreams,
Whose hour is the sleep-of-the-sheep.
Foot-tired in the grasses they lie,
Mist-pale in the darkness, and dumb;
Yet who was it mustered the stars,
And whence and what leagues have they come?
Who keeps them from straying apart?
Who urges them straight on their route?
No answer — none tell me; and lo!
The Night, though it listen, is mute!
Watch 'neath the stars of the Cross,
Orion, and Venus and Mars;
I am but a drover of sheep —
But who is the Drover of Stars?
poem by Roderic Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Confederate Memorial Day
The marching armies of the past
Along our Southern plains,
Are sleeping now in quiet rest
Beneath the Southern rains.
The bugle call is now in vain
To rouse them from their bed;
To arms they'll never march again-
They are sleeping with the dead.
No more will Shiloh's plains be stained
With blood our heroes shed,
Nor Chancellorsville resound again
To our noble warriors' tread.
For them no more shall reveille
Sound at the break of dawn,
But may their sleep peaceful be
Till God's great judgment morn.
We bow our heads in solemn prayer
For those who wore the gray,
And clasp again their unseen hands
On our Memorial Day.
poem by Anonymous Americas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Journey Towards The Top...
your wish must be
mothered by passion
your first step maybe
desire but it will not
always be the same
the other steps till the
end of your journey
towards that highest peak
will all be bleeding
sacrifices of the feet
you carry with you the
heavy weight of silence
like four sacks of rice
burdening your back
you are no longer fragile
as a morning glory
your eyes pierce the skin
of the ground, daggers all.
you forget your name
you shed off masks
you do not know a face
you keep that spirit
you have become all the
elements of nature: wind,
sea, mountain, space,
meteor, sun and moon,
but you are still one
as the steel self that you
are, a man apart from the rest.
you know beforehand about
your ending, you become a stone
part of the cliff, kissed by
the clouds, sings with the
wind, overlooking the plains.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Measures of Sorrow
Fire surges across the uncovered plains of reflection:
water rolls along slowly
mirrowing measures of sorrow.
As my trembling body shakes of uttering sadnes
drawn onto my still plastered face...
Hopes as cold as the winter skies
brings out a smell of burning red coal;
oh cries measures of sorrow:
where has my path of happiness
led me?
Hopes flutter by with wings of desire.
Fire brings in warmth
and curls lone figures into -
balls of snow
hurling across the uncovered plains of reflection.
My kindered heart is broken
burned by the fire surge
across the uncovered plains of reflection -
love envelops me? !
takes me into the heart
of a lone person
and the balls of sorrow uncurl...
inflicting measures of sorrow?
Into measures of love?
Into the heart of the unknown sullen
world of fear combining love in its mind.
poem by Celine Berghmans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Rhinos
They are more important: understand
They watch over the plains from which we sprang
The plains we glimpse in monochrome at dawn
Not realizing what our eyes feast on
Protected by a camera or a glove
From that which we have learned to fear or love
They are more important: understand
They occupy edenic promised land
No title and no good deed left undone
It is their own, their holy site and stake
Where they are pacified and burned
By subterfuge and cruel recoil
Of tranquiliser dart and gun
Now in this casual struggle to the last
Who will outlive the other, who can tell
The pachyderm, the homo sapiens
Distilling shame from all magnificence
The quicksands of commercial commonsense:
The plains are emptier than when we came
They who are more important, almost tamed.
poem by Frank Bana
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Never, Never Land
By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-
My home lies wide a thousand miles
In Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand-
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.
Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair-
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man's Land
Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Three hundred miles between.
The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country Know
Where, travelling from the southern droughts,
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.
Lest in the city I forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And I, to save my soul again,
Would tramp to sunsets grand
With sad-eyed mates across the plain
In Never-Never Land.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
By Hut, Homestead And Shearing Shed,
By hut, homestead and shearing shed,
By railroad, coach and track-
By lonely graves where rest the dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where beneath the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand-
My home lies wide a thousand miles
In Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,
A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;
To the skyline sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand-
A phantom land, a mystic realm!
The Never-Never Land.
Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair-
'Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man's Land
Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Three hundred miles between.
The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country Know
Where, travelling from the southern droughts,
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.
Lest in the city I forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And I, to save my soul again,
Would tramp to sunsets grand
With sad-eyed mates across the plain
In Never-Never Land.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
By the Grey Gulf-water
Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos -- a land half made,
Where endless space is and no life stirreth;
There the soul of a man will recoil afraid
From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth.
But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves
Her dole of death and her share of slaughter;
Many indeed are the nameless graves
Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.
Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide,
Drifting along with a languid motion,
Lapping the reed-beds on either side,
Wending their way to the North Ocean.
Grey are the plains where the emus pass
Silent and slow, with their dead demeanour;
Over the dead man's graves the grass
Maybe is waving a trifle greener.
Down in the world where men toil and spin
Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her;
Only the dead men her smiles can win
In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water.
For the strength of man is an insect's strength
In the face of that mighty plain and river,
And the life of a man is a moment's length
To the life of the stream that will run for ever.
And so it comes that they take no part
In small world worries; each hardy rover
Rides like a paladin, light of heart,
With the plains around and the blue sky over.
And up in the heavens the brown lark sings
The songs the strange wild land has taught her;
Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings --
And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Elixir
My effervescent mind collides with water
To bring an elixir of love and wine.
This ephemeral life is evocative of heavenly plains,
Fetching plains, pretty plains of pure design.
The desultory movements of demons dissembled Man,
His mind was caused to be in leisure, in lilting.
Each of us are lithe and flexible too much,
That fat devils try to counteract our lissom bodies.
Good has a nemesis, good looks opulent,
Lush souls speak good, but dirty ones sound evil.
The real elixir travels to eternal Paradise,
Strong love happens to be quintessential.
poem by Naveed Akram
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Drovers
Over the plains of the whitening grass
and the stunted mulga the drovers pass,
and in the red dust cloud, each side
of the cattle, the native stockmen ride.
And day after day lays bare the same
endless plains as the way they came,
and ever the cloven ranges lie
at the end of the land and the opal sky.
With creak of pack and saddle leather,
and chink of chain and bit together,
with moan of the herd with hobble and bell
they come to the tanks at the tea-tree well.
And through corroding blood-red hills
by sanded rivers the Gulf-rain fills,
far, where the morning star has shone
and paled above, their tracks are gone.
poem by Roland Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Wandering Soul
I travel the Earth and the astral plains,
I’ve lived most my life in guilt and shame,
Shame for the life bestowed on to me,
Guilt for the demons I couldn’t set free.
I saw the horse prints in the sand,
I was stuck in travel of no man’s land,
The sand was hot and the sun was high,
I had to keep going but wanted to die.
The minutes turned to deathly hours,
Shallowly Cactus’ no sign of flowers,
Every grain of sand seemed my encumber,
No sign of rain no sounds of thunder.
I travel for days in search of a vision,
My soul it carries many incisions,
Incisions of darkness, incisions of light,
I’m a tortured soul that welcomes the night.
I try to reach many but only a few will hear,
The sound of my voice or my footsteps near,
I travel in the shadows of days and nights,
I try to step over and cross into the light.
I am dreary and my energy hardly glows,
I’m what you call a lost and wandering soul,
Drifting over the hills and across the plains,
No one see’s me or knows my name.
© 2011 Wind Songs Spiritual Poetry
poem by Annalee Hopkins
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Take Her
As she danced about the sun,
She whitened the green plains under her;
As she moved about the moon,
She whitened the red valley below her;
But, in the light of her golden wings i do rest my case.
With a gentle motion in heaven's blue smile,
Over the lakes and the plains with her sweet love;
But in the depths of the purple sea,
The stars peeped behind her and peered.
She is very far away but,
Her love and rest ardour me;
And the diamond lights up her secret mine like,
The dark plains below her;
Which is found in an old region when looking for her.
The pearl gleams forth from her coral strand,
Like the wealth of the seas;
Over her sands of gold i do respect.
Not there my child,
Over here to see the fearless eyes of love;
Like the lit by her deep love's truth.
Her love is like the flowers of the bees,
Remembering the day when she first came;
Take her as your wife and make love to her.
Take her like the sages of Egypt,
Take her like the wealth of the seas,
The very lit by her deep love's truth;
Study her dance and be in love.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!