I stand and watch a tree of sturdy oak
I stand and watch a tree of sturdy oak
It braves against the rain, the sun and the gust
Thunder roars through its boughs with blast
Yet its leaves whitening in sight like a royal cloak
An oak proclaims against echoing dunes and scourging sun
Through the storm, tempest and chilly damp dark
Its boughs wave against torrents and bent in arcs
As it stands against the events like a calm nun
The clouds above its foliage are straining
The pale yellow woods around its trunk are waning
And a broad stream by its roots is complaining
Of heavy low skies constantly raining
With one black self reflected shadow at its feet
the oak through all its lush foliage shines
As summer haze brooding heat
And holy still silent in its dusty lusty vines
Oh I wish I had the strength and stamina of this oak
My life would be so much in a better clock
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Related quotes
Two beneath a shady tree
They were two beneath a shady tree cover
An old oak tree with blistered trunk and bark failing over
Like the hand of an old man with frail eyes
Yet leaves and fresh sprouts from its boughs shot to the skies
An old sturdy oak tree under summer sun
In mid of golden wheat clustered by the wind run
The waves of the wheat heads combed by gale and breeze
As the two set and made themselves at calm ease
They set and watched the golden field swaying in dance
The broken roar and the dim din of a remote city at horizon glance
She was beautiful and shy like a violet by a mossy wall stone
She set by him hidden and through his eyes she was only his own
They set beneath the tree, their life yet untrodden path
They spoke the first verses of love with joy and laugh
What was to come they knew not; merely the glory of that hour to bear
since they were innocent and pure; the masters of the days that were
They gathered roses from the field while they may
Unaware of old time that was still to carry them flying
A world so harsh where love grows and fleets away
They fell to play losing no time in grieving and sighing
And so they sat beneath an old oak before the sun in dusky skies
veiled his fair locks of child hair while he did spy
The unclouded luster that dwelled in her slaying eyes
Her bashful beauties once descried
The vanquished flowers around lost their pride
And in their vermilion buds their blushing they did hide
Losing their balmy fresh summer smell
They would never admit or tell
How much her sweets by far their own did excel.
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Let Me Wake Up Young
Let me wake up young at early dawn again
And welcome the showers of spring first rain
Let me love and peer up at the morning sun
With half shut eyes and comfortable fresh cheek
Let me live a sweet life tale full often to seek
Through meadows and pathless woods where rivers fall and run
Let me love again my brightest beautiful one
Of heaven and divine let me slowly speak
These love tunes to the night and the starlight meek
Or the moon, if that her hunting be begun
Let me know, let me relive these delights and be prone
To moralize upon a smile and a tear
And find at once a region in a world of my own
A meadow, a bower for my spirit where it will steer
To alleys of forest gloom where pine tree dropp their cone
Where foxes hide, robins chirp and leaves are fallen sere
Let me wake up in strength and vigor hope
Worship the morning, the mystic night, the light the shade and lush lea on slope
Let me glance again fresh on wide plains, fair foliage trees, and at sprouting flowers
Call on birds over clear streams, smooth calm lakes, and long stretched bowers
Let me lost in the happiness of pathless woods with tall towers
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The willow
How beautiful is the willow in April gown
Delicate and gleaming under the sun
Never minding the seasons and years gone
It stands, long flowery drippings and soft wind sigh
Spring does not call me as it use to
With sprouts in vast meadows and balmy flowers of variety hues
No more shall I renew myself with the world every spring
With heavy leafy boughs crowded with birds in sing
Willow, Willow sway, twinkle, lull in the sun
Your leaves, same leaves of my past days gone
Welcome me as the spring use to in wild laugh and fun
Oh let me answer the spring again for my days are still undone
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There will come
There will come upon the earth, calm spring time
When soft rains fall and raise the adores of wet ground
And flowers leap and bloom into their prime
As the swallows circle and bounce in vast meadows, shimmering sound
And no one will know of my time under the sun
And no one will reflect or contemplate of my days, not one
Not even one would mind, neither happy bird on a bough tree
That I have perished; erased diminished with no memory utterly
Come red black Robins and wear your feathery fire,
Whistling your whims on a low summer wind stirring fence-wire
And fat oily frogs in a garden pool, sing your rhythm all night
And tree heavy with late season foliage play the wind that turn you white
The world will go on as we do when an acquaintance dies
We hurry to burry and move as if it never concerns our fates; blinding our eyes
Oh that first Spring after death, herself when she wakes at dawn
Minding her course would scarcely notice that we were gone.
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The City Tree
I stand within the stony, arid town,
I gaze for ever on the narrow street;
I hear for ever passing up and down,
The ceaseless tramp of feet.
I know no brotherhood with far-lock'd woods,
Where branches bourgeon from a kindred sap;
Where o'er moss'd roots, in cool, green solitudes,
Small silver brooklets lap.
No em'rald vines creep wistfully to me,
And lay their tender fingers on my bark;
High may I toss my boughs, yet never see
Dawn's first most glorious spark.
When to and fro my branches wave and sway,
Answ'ring the feeble wind that faintly calls,
They kiss no kindred boughs but touch alway
The stones of climbing walls.
My heart is never pierc'd with song of bird;
My leaves know nothing of that glad unrest,
Which makes a flutter in the still woods heard,
When wild birds build a nest.
There never glance the eyes of violets up,
Blue into the deep splendour of my green:
Nor falls the sunlight to the primrose cup,
My quivering leaves between.
Not mine, not mine to turn from soft delight
Of wood-bine breathings, honey sweet, and warm;
With kin embattl'd rear my glorious height
To greet the coming storm!
Not mine to watch across the free, broad plains
The whirl of stormy cohorts sweeping fast;
The level, silver lances of great rains,
Blown onward by the blast.
Not mine the clamouring tempest to defy,
Tossing the proud crest of my dusky leaves:
Defender of small flowers that trembling lie
Against my barky greaves.
Not mine to watch the wild swan drift above,
Balanced on wings that could not choose between
The wooing sky, blue as the eye of love,
And my own tender green.
And yet my branches spread, a kingly sight,
In the close prison of the drooping air:
When sun-vex'd noons are at their fiery height,
My shade is broad, and there
Come city toilers, who their hour of ease
Weave out to precious seconds as they lie
Pillow'd on horny hands, to hear the breeze
Through my great branches die.
I see no flowers, but as the children race
With noise and clamour through the dusty street,
I see the bud of many an angel face--
I hear their merry feet.
No violets look up, but shy and grave,
The children pause and lift their chrystal eyes
To where my emerald branches call and wave--
As to the mystic skies.
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Live and love
Live and love
Young as old
Like running brook
Bright, distilled in spring
As Love strengthens its wings
Summer – vigor
Passion and quiver
Autumn changed
Soberer hued
Don’t miss love queue
Love again
Until all love’s leaves
Are fallen at length
Look at love, it stands
Bones and boughs
Naked strength
Die loving
Not love dying
At the end of your sky
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A silhouette of childhood
Flow down, cold distilled rivulets never make it to the sea,
Your tribute waves into my childhood memories deliver:
Yet, no more by thee my old forgotten steps shall be,
For ever, and never again for ever.
Flow, softly flow by newly built houses; among reeds; by little lawn or lea,
A host of joyful rivulets never to join and to bond into a river;
Time has taken my steps away, not at your banks to be,
For ever and never again for ever.
But here still will smile your century old fig tree,
With a huge trunk and sturdy blistered boughs the wind will never shiver
A gang of cheerful kids with mouthful of figs sweet like honey bee
For ever in my silhouette memories; again and again for ever.
Here in my childhood scenes and voices I shall ever be
Under thousands of suns stream and moons sheen, figures dance and quiver
Even though not by these scenes my steps shall ever be,
For ever and for ever
I walked through your streets gaunt and grim; none of the past for me to see
I came to relive, to remember, to reminiscence but I was left an abundant receiver
My bosom sank; my voice choked gnawing within me
For ever and for ever under such burdening painful endeavor
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Night of dew and tangle
I recall a night of dew and tangle
As the dew fell on the cobweb from a wind at angle
To leave it threaded with stars
A night of scattering jewels on fences and pastures bars
As proud dawn rose against dry grass bright
Yet to come under human sight
And tangled boughs and weaved weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem on each of their seeds
Come again you blue dust of evening over slumbering city,
Over this ocean of roofs, walls, streets and tall towers
Where the window-lights innumerable claim skies without pity
And bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
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The Leaf
A little oak leaf tore off from its branch
Was driven o'er the steppe by a cruel gale;
Dried up and withered from the cold, the heat and sorrow
It finally alit by the Black Sea shore.
A young plane tree stands by the Black Sea shore;
A whispering wind strokes her green boughs;
On her green boughs sway heavenly birds
Singing the praises and fame of the queen of the sea.
The traveler lit at the soaring tree's roots;
Anguished he pled for a moment's shelter,
And these were his words: "I am but a poor oak leaf,
Matured before my time in a grim homeland.
For ages I've wandered without a goal, all alone
Without shade I withered, without repose, faded.
Would you welcome this stranger among your emerald leaves,
I know many stories of wonder and wisdom."
"But why do I need you?" the young tree replies, -
"You are dusty and yellow - ill-suited to my wholesome young sons.
You've seen many things - but what use do I have for your tales?
The heavenly birds have long wearied my ears.
O traveler! Be on your way. You are a stranger to me!
Beloved by the sun, I bloom and shine for him;
My boughs are spread in the heavenly fields,
The cool sea refreshes and washes my roots."
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The winds
From the meadows her walks have left a balm so sweet
That whenever summer wind wilts and sighs
It sets the jewel print of her lovely feet
In violet blue hue as her slaying eyes
To the woody hollows in which we hide and meet
And the heavenly valleys of daunting Paradise
A slender bird in foliage high, his wings would not shake
One long white bloom of a tall sturdy tree
The white bloom reed fell bending into the fresh lake
As the pimpernels dozed in the summer sun on the lea
But the rose was all night advocating her sake
Knowing my love promise to me
With the lilies they were all night awake
wondering what my love acts and takes will prove to be
Four winds blowing through the bright sky,
My heart is heavy with forlorn love
You have seen poor me under the burden of love I die,
No remedy from the mountains around or the heaven above
I asked the winds: Tell me then what I shall do
That my maiden love may be honest, virtue and true.
Shall I be stern with her to the haughty
Or shall kisses and sweet talks will sway the maid so naughty
Oh, sighed the spring wind from out the South,
'Lay a kiss upon her voluptuous mouth, '
And the winter grumpy wind from out the West without mercy or taste,
'Wound the heart within the lovely valley of her breast, '
A prompt protest came from the summer wind from out the East,
'On the contrary! Send her a banquet of a lavish feast, '
With disdain and mockery breaths the autumn wind from out the North,
Exclaimed: 'In the tempest winds thrust her forth;
Shall I be cruel and harsh as she
Then her love will pacify and relent to be kind to me
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I, the son of fragile mortality
I, the son of fragile mortality
A living soul and then nothing
me who would be cast as a die
standing and adoring the yellow sunset declines
and its long rays and shades the landscapes shines
to mark the barks of trees and flowers stems all with golden light
that lit the dark slant woods of dusk with silvery white
all quiet and calm before the moon takes its roll in the East
adoring all this holy scene I realized that
I am not even a leaf on the blooming bough
Just not a part of this beauty and bloom
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An Autumn Night
An autumn night, so bitter chill it is
An owl, for all its plum and thick feathers is cold
The hare long ago rushed limping trembling through the frozen maze
Into a lair, and silent stark are the song birds on a woody enfold
Naked trees with barren boughs, no leaf does tremble, no ripple there
On the streets, all abandoned still under the night sleepy eye
The world so deserted from any human sign or care
Darkness reign on dreary routes with echoing cry
And the moon whether prudish or shy in this cold night
Has fled to her bower, well reluctant to lend her dimming light
No light in this oppressing darkness, no fume no torch in the gloom
Is this world ever waken, do these trees ever bloom
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Rain-tree
Rain-tree
The rain-tree is of cassia family -
Like an elephant it stands on the road, clothed
With thick green foliage, dark against the sky
All along the Bandra-Kurla road in Mumbai.
You have to exert a little and see
Over the top to see the nazuna-type
Of pink flowers sitting above the foliage
In plentiful numbers, with up-thrust pink hairs.
Unlike the African tulip in front of ONGC
At Bandra Flyover visible from the distance,
Here the pink and green does not show off
As rain-tree flowers don’t advertise themselves.
Unlike copper-pod’s bright yellow flowers
The rain tree flowers don’t weave a carpet:
I’ve never seen the flowers on the ground below
Nor do they wither on the tree, how I wonder!
In monsoon rains, the leaves shine specially,
Transparent drops falling on walkers below,
Or with a thud on the racing car bonnets too,
Some choose to fall on road to rise a bit upwards.
I have not understood why it is called rain-tree:
Are they attracted, peacock-like, to the rain-clouds,
Or does the rain-bird which drinks water straight from heavens
Prefer this tree, and inspire Kalidasa to write Meghdoot?
poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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An Indian Story
"I know where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
From the eye of the hunter well.
"I know where the young May violet grows,
In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark bough, in solemn repose,
Far over the silent brook.
"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
To look on the lovely flower."
Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,
And voice like the music of rills.
He goes to the chase- but evil eyes
Are at watch in the thicker shades;
For she was lovely that smiled oh his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
The flower of the forest maids.
The boughs in the morning wind are stirred,
And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard
Where the hazels trickle with dew.
And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,
Ere eve shall redden the sky,
A good red deer from the forest shade,
That bounds with the herd through grove and glade,
At her cabin-door shall lie.
The hollow woods, in the setting sun,
Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;
And Maquon's sylvan labors are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
He bears on his homeward way.
He stops near his bower- his eye perceives
Strange traces along the ground—
At once to the earth his burden he heaves;
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves;
And gains its door with a bound.
But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
And all from the young shrubs there
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent,
One tress of the well-known hair.
But where is she who, at this calm hour,
Ever watched his coming to see?
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower;
He calls—but he only hears on the flower
The hum of the laden bee.
It is not a time for idle grief,
Nor a time for tears to flow;
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief—
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf
Of darts made sharp for the foe.
And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet
Where he bore the maiden away;
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast hurries the vapor and sleet
O'er the wild November day.
'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride
Was stolen away from his door;
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin-side—
And she smiles at his hearth once more.
But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold,
Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
In the deepest gloom of the spot.
And the Indian girls, that pass that way,
Point out the ravisher's grave;
"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Returned the maid that was borne away
From Maquon, the fond and the brave."
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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And the was
And the was like it never had been
As if it is forgotten to be a never happen
It drifts away into the far mists of the past
Lovers first sight, zeal rapture and the engulfing lust
Time is a generous entrepreneur it let us grow old
The memories will be encapsulated in thin fragile patina
Being dappled with daily events unlikely attendants in our arena
Thus the was story never happened its shadow flickers into me cold
It is the world habit that love asks more than life can give
And once this lesson learned all essence is earned
Yet in its self web of fantasy and dreams love is its own fugitive
Rebellious, tenacious, delirious unwilling to give or to bend
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Love lost
She was so cruel and capricious making me bury our love
Not in a grave yard under a sluttish tomb stone
But beneath a tall oak tree of a forest dark, wide and alone
Where none can come across or see from above
There will be no memorial days or sad hours
And I shall never visit the tree or put flowers
Yet the mouth I loved so much to kiss and to treat
Was none like so daring and bittersweet
I shall never go to the under tree love grave
For the woods are hostile, dark and cold
My time I shall for new love save
New love, new joy, constrain the rebel heart, forget the old
All day long I shall stay in the sun
Where the wide winds blow and flowers bloom
But oh, I shall cry at night for my sorrow is still undone
When none will know my time of agony and gloom
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My heart is heavy with fruits of love
My heart is heavy with fruits of love
Like clusters of ripe pomegranate fruit bearing down
The canopy branches of the tree
But I can never give you one from above
It is waxed and sweetened by the full sun as jewels crown
The fruits of my love do not belong to me; they are not free
Yet in the evening, at dusk twilight, I dare entreat you to hide low
When bats chase moths encircling wandering in lights glow
Under the crimson dusk skies’ pall
A fruit from the tree may slip and fall
And when in the gray hour it drops as lust’s prey
Would you take it? Hence no one will ever know or say
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Sonnet XXIX: I Think of Thee
I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee,as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly
Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered, everywhere!
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sonnet XXIX
I think of thee !--my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better ! Rather, instantly
Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered, everywhere !
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Xxix
I think of thee !--my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better ! Rather, instantly
Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered, everywhere !
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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