Cobbler Keezar's Vision
The beaver cut his timber
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
Surveyors of highway,-
When Keezar sat on the hillside
Upon his cobbler's form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.
And there, in the golden weather,
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.
Well knew the tough old Teuton
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife's reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.
The songs they still are singing
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples
Flashing in foam and spray,-
Down on the sharp-horned ledges
Plunging in steep cascade,
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock's shade.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
East and west and north and south;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river's mouth;
Only here and there a clearing,
With its farm-house rude and new,
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew.
No shout of home-bound reapers,
No vintage-song he heard,
And on the green no dancing feet
The merry violin stirred.
'Why should folk be glum,' said Keezar,
'When Nature herself is glad,
And the painted woods are laughing
At the faces so sour and sad?'
Small heed had the careless cobbler
What sorrow of heart was theirs
Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
And planted a state with prayers,-
Hunting of witches and warlocks,
Smiting the heathen horde,-
One hand on the mason's trowel,
And one on the soldier's sword.
But give him his ale and cider,
Give him his pipe and song,
Little he cared for Church or State,
Or the balance of right and wrong.
'T is work, work, work,' he muttered,-
'And for rest a snuffle of psalms!'
He smote on his leathern apron
With his brown and waxen palms.
'Oh for the purple harvests
Of the days when I was young
For the merry grape-stained maidens,
And the pleasant songs they sung!
'Oh for the breath of vineyards,
Of apples and nuts and wine
For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
Down the grand old river Rhine!'
A tear in his blue eye glistened,
And dropped on his beard so gray.
'Old, old am I,' said Keezar,
'And the Rhine flows far away!'
But a cunning man was the cobbler;
He could call the birds from the trees,
Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
And bring back the swarming bees.
All the virtues of herbs and metals,
All the lore of the woods, he knew,
And the arts of the Old World mingle
With the marvels of the New.
Well he knew the tricks of magic,
And the lapstone on his knee
Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles
Or the stone of Doctor Dee.
For the mighty master Agrippa
Wrought it with spell and rhyme
From a fragment of mystic moonstone
In the tower of Nettesheim.
To a cobbler Minnesinger
The marvellous stone gave he,-
And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
Who brought it over the sea.
He held up that mystic lapstone,
He held it up like a lens,
And he counted the long years coming
Ey twenties and by tens.
'One hundred years,' quoth Keezar,
'And fifty have I told
Now open the new before me,
And shut me out the old!'
Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
Rolled from the magic stone,
And a marvellous picture mingled
The unknown and the known.
Still ran the stream to the river,
And river and ocean joined;
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.
But-the mighty forest was broken
By many a steepled town,
By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.
Turning a score of mill-wheels,
The stream no more ran free;
White sails on the winding river,
White sails on the far-off sea.
Below in the noisy village
The flags were floating gay,
And shone on a thousand faces
The light of a holiday.
Swiftly the rival ploughmen
Turned the brown earth from their shares;
Here were the farmer's treasures,
There were the craftsman's wares.
Golden the goodwife's butter,
Ruby her currant-wine;
Grand were the strutting turkeys,
Fat were the beeves and swine.
Yellow and red were the apples,
And the ripe pears russet-brown,
And the peaches had stolen blushes
From the girls who shook them down.
And with blooms of hill and wildwood,
That shame the toil of art,
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
Of the garden's tropic heart.
'What is it I see?' said Keezar
'Am I here, or ant I there?
Is it a fete at Bingen?
Do I look on Frankfort fair?
'But where are the clowns and puppets,
And imps with horns and tail?
And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?
'Strange things, I know, will happen,-
Strange things the Lord permits;
But that droughty folk should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.
'Here are smiling manly faces,
And the maiden's step is gay;
Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.
'Here's pleasure without regretting,
And good without abuse,
The holiday and the bridal
Of beauty and of use.
'Here's a priest and there is a Quaker,
Do the cat and dog agree?
Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood?
Have they cut down the gallows-tree?
'Would the old folk know their children?
Would they own the graceless town,
With never a ranter to worry
And never a witch to drown?'
Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar,
Laughed like a school-boy gay;
Tossing his arms above him,
The lapstone rolled away.
It rolled down the rugged hillside,
It spun like a wheel bewitched,
It plunged through the leaning willows,
And into the river pitched.
There, in the deep, dark water,
The magic stone lies still,
Under the leaning willows
In the shadow of the hill.
But oft the idle fisher
Sits on the shadowy bank,
And his dreams make marvellous pictures
Where the wizard's lapstone sank.
And still, in the summer twilights,
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory,
Warm with the melted sun,
The weary mill-girl lingers
Beside the charmed stream,
And the sky and the golden water
Shape and color her dream.
Air wave the sunset gardens,
The rosy signals fly;
Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
And love goes sailing by.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Sycamores
In the outskirts of the village
On the river's winding shores
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand the ancient sycamores.
One long century hath been numbered,
And another half-way told
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.
Deftly set to Celtic music
At his violin's sound they grew,
Through the moonlit eves of summer,
Making Amphion's fable true.
Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant!
Pass in erkin green along
With thy eyes brim full of laughter,
And thy mouth as full of song.
Pioneer of Erin's outcasts
With his fiddle and his pack-
Little dreamed the village Saxons
Of the myriads at his back.
How he wrought with spade and fiddle,
Delved by day and sang by night,
With a hand that never wearied
And a heart forever light,---
Still the gay tradition mingles
With a record grave and drear
Like the rollic air of Cluny
With the solemn march of Mear.
When the box-tree, white with blossoms,
Made the sweet May woodlands glad,
And the Aronia by the river
Lighted up the swarming shad,
And the bulging nets swept shoreward
With their silver-sided haul,
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
He was merriest of them all.
When, among the jovial huskers
Love stole in at Labor's side
With the lusty airs of England
Soft his Celtic measures vied.
Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake
And the merry fair's carouse;
Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
And the Woman of Three Cows,
By the blazing hearths of winter
Pleasant seemed his simple tales,
Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends
And the mountain myths of Wales.
How the souls in Purgatory
Scrambled up from fate forlorn
On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder
Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.
Of the fiddler who at Tara
Played all night to ghosts of kings;
Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies
Dancing in their moorland rings!
Jolliest of our birds of singing
Best he loved the Bob-o-link.
"Hush!" he'd say, "the tipsy fairies!
Hear the little folks in drink!"
Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle,
Singing through the ancient town,
Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant
Hath Tradtion handed down.
Not a stone his grave discloses;
But if yet his spirit walks
Tis beneath the trees he planted
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks.
Green memorials of the gleeman!
Linking still the river-shores,
With their shadows cast by sunset
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!
When the Father of his Country
Through the north-land riding came
And the roofs were starred with banners,
And the steeples rang acclaim,---
When each war-scarred Continental
Leaving smithy, mill,.and farm,
Waved his rusted sword in welcome,
And shot off his old king's-arm,---
Slowly passed that august Presence
Down the thronged and shouting street;
Village girls as white as angels
Scattering flowers around his feet.
Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow
Deepest fell, his rein he drew:
On his stately head, uncovered,
Cool and soft the west-wind blew.
And he stood up in his stirrups,
Looking up and looking down
On the hills of Gold and Silver
Rimming round the little town,---
On the river, full of sunshine,
To the lap of greenest vales
Winding down from wooded headlands,
Willow-skirted, white with sails.
And he said, the landscape sweeping
Slowly with his ungloved hand
"I have seen no prospect fairer
In this goodly Eastern land."
Then the bugles of his escort
Stirred to life the cavalcade:
And that head, so bare and stately
Vanished down the depths of shade.
Ever since, in town and farm-house,
Life has had its ebb and flow;
Thrice hath passed the human harvest
To its garner green and low.
But the trees the gleeman planted,
Through the changes, changeless stand;
As the marble calm of Tadmor
Mocks the deserts shifting sand.
Still the level moon at rising
Silvers o'er each stately shaft;
Still beneath them, half in shadow,
Singing, glides the pleasure craft;
Still beneath them, arm-enfolded,
Love and Youth together stray;
While, as heart to heart beats faster,
More and more their feet delay.
Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar,
On the open hillside justice wrought,
Singing, as he drew his stitches,
Songs his German masters taught.
Singing, with his gray hair floating
Round a rosy ample face,---
Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen
Stitch and hammer in his place.
All the pastoral lanes so grassy
Now are Traffic's dusty streets;
From the village, grown a city,
Fast the rural grace retreats.
But, still green and tall and stately,
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the occidental plane-trees,
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Where Go the Boats?
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating -
Where will all come home?
On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Been There Before
There came a stranger to Walgett town,
To Walgett town when the sun was low,
And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
Yet how to quench it he did not know;
But he thought he might take those yokels down,
The guileless yokels of Walgett town.
They made him a bet in a private bar,
In a private bar when the talk was high,
And they bet him some pounds no matter how far
He could pelt a stone, yet he could not shy
A stone right over the river so brown,
The Darling River at Walgett town.
He knew that the river from bank to bank
Was fifty yards, and he smiled a smile
As he trundled down; but his hopes they sank,
For there wasn’t a stone within fifty mile;
For the saltbush plain and the open down
Produce no quarries in Walgett town.
The yokels laughed at his hopes o’erthrown,
And he stood awhile like a man in a dream;
Then out of his pocket he fetched a stone,
And pelted it over the silent stream –
He’d been there before; he had wandered down
On a previous visit to Walgett town.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Keepsake Mill
Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river we go.
Here is a mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under--
Marvellous places, though handy to home!
Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill.
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home for the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Karma
I drop a stone into the ocean
Every choice another turn of the screw
Another wheel set in motion
With every single thing I do
Its there in the air that I breathe
Its in my whisper and scream
Inside everything I believe
And its all gonna come around someday
As the smallest stream runs to a river
And every river runs to the sea
So every little bit of love I give to another
You know that I believe it comes back to me
There is no absolution whether Im the garden or the rose
If I aint part of the solution, yeah you know how that goes
You can always leave but you bring it all back home someday
As the smallest stream runs to a river
And every river runs to the sea
So every little bit of love I give to another
You know that I believe it comes back to me
Every single thing I say, everyone that I betray
Any love that I take when I do not make it in return
Every thing I do and every time Ive been unfaithful too
All the things that I believe are lessons I must learn
As the smallest stream runs to a river
And every river runs to the sea
So every little bit of love I give to another
You know that I believe it comes back to me
As the smallest stream runs to a river
And every river runs to the sea
So every little bit of love I give to another
You know that I believe it comes back to me
song performed by by Rick Springfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grand Rapids
Air -- "Bright Alfaretta"
Wild roved the Indians once
On the banks of Grand River,
And they built their little huts
Down by that flowing river.
In a pleasant valley fair,
Where flows the river rapid,
An Indian village once was there,
Where now stands Grand Rapids.
Indian girls and boys were seen,
With their bow and quiver,
Riding in their light canoes
Up and down the river.
Their hearts were full of joy,
Happy voices singing
Made music with forest birds,
They kept the valley ringing.
Indians have left and gone
Beyond the Mississippi.
They called the river Owashtenong
Where stands this pleasant city.
Louis Campau the first white man
Bought land in Grand Rapids.
He lived and died, an honored man
By people of Grand Rapids.
When Campau came to the valley
No bridge was across the river;
Indians in their light canoes
Rowed them o'er the water.
Railroads now from every way
Run through the city, Grand Rapids;
The largest town in west Michigan
Is the city of Grand Rapids.
poem by Julia A Moore
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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
poem by Rachel Harris
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The Wreck Of Rivermouth
Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see,
By dawn or sunset shone across,
When the ebb of the sea has left them free,
To dry their fringes of gold-green moss
For there the river comes winding down,
From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown,
And waves on the outer rocks afoam
Shout to its waters, 'Welcome home!'
And fair are the sunny isles in view
East of the grisly Head of the Boar,
And Agamenticus lifts its blue
Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er;
And southerly, when the tide is down,
'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown,
The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel
Over a floor of burnished steel.
Once, in the old Colonial days,
Two hundred years ago and more,
A boat sailed down through the winding ways
Of Hampton River to that low shore,
Full of a goodly company
Sailing out on the summer sea,
Veering to catch the land-breeze light,
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right.
In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid
Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass,
'Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!'
A young man sighed, who saw them pass.
Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand,
Hearing a voice in a far-off song,
Watching a white hand beckoning long.
'Fie on the witch!' cried a merry girl,
As they rounded the point where Goody Cole
Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl,
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul.
'Oho!' she muttered, 'ye 're brave to-day!
But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
For it 's one to go, but another to come!''
'She's cursed,' said the skipper; 'speak her fair:
I'm scary always to see her shake
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair,
And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.'
But merrily still, with laugh and shout,
From Hampton River the boat sailed out,
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh,
And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye.
They dropped their lines in the lazy tide,
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod;
They saw not the Shadow that walked beside,
They heard not the feet with silence shod.
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew,
Shot by the lightnings through and through;
And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast,
Ran along the sky from west to east.
Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea
Up to the dimmed and wading sun;
But he spake like a brave man cheerily,
'Yet there is time for our homeward run.'
Veering and tacking, they backward wore;
And just as a breath-from the woods ashore
Blew out to whisper of danger past,
The wrath of the storm came down at last!
The skipper hauled at the heavy sail
'God be our help!' he only cried,
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail,
Smote the boat on its starboard side.
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown,
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare,
The strife and torment of sea and air.
Goody Cole looked out from her door
The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone,
Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar
Toss the foam from tusks of stone.
She clasped her hands with a grip of pain,
The tear on her cheek was not of rain
'They are lost,' she muttered, 'boat and crew!
Lord, forgive me! my words were true!'
Suddenly seaward swept the squall;
The low sun smote through cloudy rack;
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all
The trend of the coast lay hard and black.
But far and wide as eye could reach,
No life was seen upon wave or beach;
The boat that went out at morning never
Sailed back again into Hampton River.
O mower, lean on thy bended snath,
Look from the meadows green and low
The wind of the sea is a waft of death,
The waves are singing a song of woe!
By silent river, by moaning sea,
Long and vain shall thy watching be
Never again shall the sweet voice call,
Never the white hand rise and fall!
O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight
Ye saw in the light of breaking day
Dead faces looking up cold and white
From sand and seaweed where they lay.
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,
And cursed the tide as it backward crept
'Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake
Leave your dead for the hearts that break!'
Solemn it was in that old day
In Hampton town and its log-built church,
Where side by side the coffins lay
And the mourners stood in aisle and porch.
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,
The voices faltered that raised the hymn,
And Father Dalton, grave and stern,
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn.
But his ancient colleague did not pray;
Under the weight of his fourscore years
He stood apart with the iron-gray
Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears;
And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame,
Linking her own with his honored name,
Subtle as sin, at his side withstood
The felt reproach of her neighborhood.
Apart with them, like them forbid,
Old Goody Cole looked drearily round,
As, two by two, with their faces hid,
The mourners walked to the burying-ground.
She let the staff from her clasped hands fall
'Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!'
And the voice of the old man answered her
'Amen!' said Father Bachiler.
So, as I sat upon Appledore
In the calm of a closing summer day,
And the broken lines of Hampton shore
In purple mist of cloudland lay,
The Rivermouth Rocks their story told;
And waves aglow with sunset gold,
Rising and breaking in steady chime,
Beat the rhythm and kept the time.
And the sunset paled, and warmed once more
With a softer, tenderer after-glow;
In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore
And sails in the distance drifting slow.
The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar,
The White Isle kindled its great red star;
And life and death in my old-time lay
Mingled in peace like the night and day!
. . . . .
'Well!' said the Man of Books, 'your story
Is really not ill told in verse.
As the Celt said of purgatory,
One might go farther and fare worse.'
The Reader smiled; and once again
With steadier voice took up his strain,
While the fair singer from the neighboring tent
Drew near, and at his side a graceful listener bent.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The River Maiden
Her gown was simple woven wool,
But, in repayment,
Her body sweet made beautiful
The simplest raiment:
For all its fine, melodious curves
With life a-quiver
Were graceful as the bends and swerves
Of her own river.
Her round arms, from the shoulders down
To sweet hands slender,
The sun had kissed them amber-brown
With kisses tender.
For though she loved the secret shades
Where ferns grow stilly,
And wild vines droop their glossy braids,
And gleams the lily,
And Nature, with soft eyes that glow
In gloom that glistens,
Unto her own heart, beating slow,
In silence listens:
She loved no less the meadows fair,
And green, and spacious;
The river, and the azure air,
And sunlight gracious.
I saw her first when tender, wan,
Green light enframed her;
And, in my heart, the Flower of Dawn
I softly named her.
The bright sun, like a king in state,
With banners streaming,
Rode through the fair auroral gate
In mail gold-gleaming.
The witch-eyed stars before him paled—
So high his scorning!—
And round the hills the rose-clouds sailed,
And it was morning.
The light mimosas bended low
To do her honour,
As in that rosy morning glow
I gazed upon her.
My boat swung bowward to the stream
Where tall reeds shiver;
We floated onward, in a dream,
Far down the River.
The River that full oft has told
To Ocean hoary
A many-coloured, sweet, and old
Unending story:
The story of the tall, young trees,
For ever sighing
To sail some day the rolling seas
’Neath banners flying.
The Ocean hears, and through his caves
Roars gusty laughter;
And takes the River, with his waves
To roll thereafter.
But Love deep waters cannot drown;
To its old fountains
The stream returns in clouds that crown
Its parent mountains.
The River was to her so dear
She seemed its daughter;
Her deep translucent eyes were clear
As sunlit water;
And in her bright veins seemed to run,
Pulsating, glowing,
The music of the wind and sun,
And waters flowing.
The secrets of the trees she knew:
Their growth, their gladness,
And, when their time of death was due,
Their stately sadness.
Gray gums, like old men warped by time,
She knew their story;
And theirs that laughed in pride of prime
And leafy glory;
And theirs that, where clear waters run,
Drooped dreaming, dreaming;
And theirs that shook against the sun
Their green plumes gleaming.
All things of gladness that exist
Did seem to woo her,
And well that woodland satirist,
The lyre-bird, knew her.
And there were hidden mossy dells
That she knew only,
Where Beauty born of silence dwells
Mysterious, lonely.
No sounds of toil their stillness taunt,
No hearth-smoke sullies
The air: the Mountain Muses haunt
Those lone, green gullies.
And there they weave a song of Fate
That never slumbers:
A song some bard shall yet translate
In golden numbers.
A blue haze veiled the hills’ huge shapes
A misty lustre—
Like rime upon the purple grapes,
When ripe they cluster:
’Twas noon, and all the Vale was gold—
An El Dorado:
The damask river seaward rolled,
Through shine and shadow.
And, gazing on its changing glow,
I saw, half-sighing,
The wondrous Fairyland below
Its surface lying.
There all things shone with paler sheen:
More softly shimmered
The fern-fronds, and with softer green
The myrtles glimmered:
And—like that Fisher gazing in
The sea-depths, pining
For days gone by, who saw Julin
Beneath him shining,
With many a wave-washed corridor,
And sea-filled portal,
And plunged below, and nevermore
Was seen of mortal—
So I, long gazing at the gleam
Of fern and flower,
Felt drawn down to that World of Dream
By magic power:
For there, I knew, in silence sat,
With breasts slow-heaving,
Illusion’s Queen Rabesquerat,
Her web a-weaving.
But when the moon shone, large and low,
Against Orion,
Then, as from some pale portico
Might issue Dian,
She came through tall tree-pillars pale,
A silver vision,
A nymph strayed out of Ida’s vale
Or fields Elysian.
White stars shone out with mystic gleams
The woods illuming:
It seemed as if the trees in dreams
Once more were blooming.
And all beneath those starry blooms,
By bends and beaches,
We floated on through glassy glooms,
Down moonlit reaches.
Ah, that was in the glad years when
Joys ne’er were sifted,
But I on wilder floods since then
Have darkly drifted.
Yet, River of Romance, for me
With pictures glowing,
Through dim, green fields of Memory
Thou still art flowing.
And still I hear, thy shores along,
All faintly ringing,
The notes of ghosts of birds that long
Have ceased their singing.
Was she, who then my heart did use
To touch so purely,
A mortal maiden—or a Muse?
I know not, surely.
But still in dreams I see her stand,
A fairer Flora,
Serene, immortal, by the strand
Of clear Narora.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Winds Message
There came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,
Above the tossing of the pines, above the river's flow;
It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart iron-bark;
It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;
It brought a breath of mountain air from off the hills of pine,
A scent of eucalyptus trees in honey-laden bloom;
And drifting, drifting far away along the Southern line
It caught from leaf and grass and fern a subtle strange perfume.
It reached the toiling city folk, but few there were that heard--
The rattle of their busy life had choked the whisper down;
And some but caught a fresh-blown breeze with scent of pine that stirred
A thought of blue hills far away beyond the smoky town;
And others heard the whisper pass, but could not understand
The magic of the breeze's breath that set their hearts aglow,
Nor how the roving wind could bring across the Overland
A sound of voices silent now and songs of long ago.
But some that heard the whisper clear were filled with vague unrest;
The breeze had brought its message home, they could not fixed abide;
Their fancies wandered all the day towards the blue hills' breast,
Towards the sunny slopes that lie along the riverside,
The mighty rolling western plains are very fair to see,
Where waving to the passing breeze the silver myalls stand,
But fairer are the giant hills, all rugged though they be,
From which the two great rivers rise that run along the Bland.
Oh! rocky range and rugged spur and river running clear,
That swings around the sudden bends with swirl of snow-white foam,
Though we, your sons are far away, we sometimes seem to hear
The message that the breezes bring to call the wanderers home.
The mountain peaks are white with snow that feeds a thousand rills,
Along the rive banks the maize grows tall on virgin land,
And we shall live to see once more those sunny southern hills,
And strike once more the bridle track that leads along the Bland.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Huskers
IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain
Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;
The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay
With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow flowers of May.
Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red,
At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped;
Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued,
On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night,
He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light;
Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;
And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.
And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky,
Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why;
And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks,
Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.
From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks;
But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks.
No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell,
And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.
The summer grains were harvested; the stubblefields lay dry,
Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye;
But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood,
Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood.
Bent low, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere,
Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear;
Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold,
And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.
There wrought the busy harvesters; and many a creaking wain
Bore slowly to the long barn-floor is load of husk and grain;
Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last,
And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed.
And lo! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond,
Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire beyond,
Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone,
And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!
As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away,
And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay;
From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name,
Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came.
Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow,
Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below;
The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before,
And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er.
Half hidden, in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart,
Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart;
While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade,
At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played.
Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair,
Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair,
The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue,
To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking-ballad sung.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The River Forever To The Ocean Flow
The river that flows from the hills far away
Through wetlands and dry lands by night and by day
As old as father time will journey forever more
Through the flat coastal lands en route to the sea shore.
It starts on it's journey as a trickling rill
In a pond by a rock at the base of the hill
That is far north of here even as the crow fly
The river flows on and refuses to die.
From a rill to a stream and into a river it grow
As rills and streams from other hills into it flow
It babbles and gurgles by hedgerow and tree
On it's forever journey on down to the sea.
A creek, brook, stream or river call it what you may
Near the ocean it grows to a huge water-way
And Humans like the Seasons to life come and go
But the river forever to the ocean flow
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Countess
TO E. W.
I KNOW not, Time and Space so intervene,
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen;
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
I still can hear at times a softer note
Of the old pastoral music round me float,
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife
Looms the green mirage of a simpler life.
As, at his alien post, the sentinel
Drops the old bucket in the homestead well,
And hears old voices in the winds that toss
Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss,
So, in our trial-time, and under skies
Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise,
I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray
To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day;
And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams
Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams,
The country doctor in the foreground seems,
Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes
Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains.
I could not paint the scenery of my song,
Mindless of one who looked thereon so long;
Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round,
Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound
Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees
Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys;
Who saw so keenly and so well could paint
The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,
The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan.
Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown;
The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown;
The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale,
And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,--
Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears,
All that lies buried under fifty years.
To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay,
And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay.
. . . . . . . . . .
Over the wooded northern ridge,
Between its houses brown,
To the dark tunnel of the bridge
The street comes straggling down.
You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine,
Of gable, roof, and porch,
The tavern with its swinging sign,
The sharp horn of the church.
The river's steel-blue crescent curves
To meet, in ebb and flow,
The single broken wharf that serves
For sloop and gundelow.
With salt sea-scents along its shores
The heavy hay-boats crawl,
The long antennae of their oars
In lazy rise and fall.
Along the gray abutment's wall
The idle shad-net dries;
The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
Sits smoking with closed eyes.
You hear the pier's low undertone
Of waves that chafe and gnaw;
You start,--a skipper's horn is blown
To raise the creaking draw.
At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds
With slow and sluggard beat,
Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds
Fakes up the staring street.
A place for idle eyes and ears,
A cobwebbed nook of dreams;
Left by the stream whose waves are years
The stranded village seems.
And there, like other moss and rust,
The native dweller clings,
And keeps, in uninquiring trust,
The old, dull round of things.
The fisher drops his patient lines,
The farmer sows his grain,
Content to hear the murmuring pines
Instead of railroad-train.
Go where, along the tangled steep
That slopes against the west,
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
In still profounder rest.
Throw back the locust's flowery plume,
The birch's pale-green scarf,
And break the web of brier and bloom
From name and epitaph.
A simple muster-roll of death,
Of pomp and romance shorn,
The dry, old names that common breath
Has cheapened and outworn.
Yet pause by one low mound, and part
The wild vines o'er it laced,
And read the words by rustic art
Upon its headstone traced.
Haply yon white-haired villager
Of fourscore years can say
What means the noble name of her
Who sleeps with common clay.
An exile from the Gascon land
Found refuge here and rest,
And loved, of all the village band,
Its fairest and its best.
He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,
He worshipped through her eyes,
And on the pride that doubts and scorns
Stole in her faith's surprise.
Her simple daily life he saw
By homeliest duties tried,
In all things by an untaught law
Of fitness justified.
For her his rank aside he laid;
He took the hue and tone
Of lowly life and toil, and made
Her simple ways his own.
Yet still, in gay and careless ease,
To harvest-field or dance
He brought the gentle courtesies,
The nameless grace of France.
And she who taught him love not less
From him she loved in turn
Caught in her sweet unconsciousness
What love is quick to learn.
Each grew to each in pleased accord,
Nor knew the gazing town
If she looked upward to her lord
Or he to her looked down.
How sweet, when summer's day was o'er,
His violin's mirth and wail,
The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore,
The river's moonlit sail!
Ah! life is brief, though love be long;
The altar and the bier,
The burial hymn and bridal song,
Were both in one short year!
Her rest is quiet on the hill,
Beneath the locust's bloom
Far off her lover sleeps as still
Within his scutcheoned tomb.
The Gascon lord, the village maid,
In death still clasp their hands;
The love that levels rank and grade
Unites their severed lands.
What matter whose the hillside grave,
Or whose the blazoned stone?
Forever to her western wave
Shall whisper blue Garonne!
O Love!--so hallowing every soil
That gives thy sweet flower room,
Wherever, nursed by ease or toil,
The human heart takes bloom!--
Plant of lost Eden, from the sod
Of sinful earth unriven,
White blossom of the trees of God
Dropped down to us from heaven!
This tangled waste of mound and stone
Is holy for thy sale;
A sweetness which is all thy own
Breathes out from fern and brake.
And while ancestral pride shall twine
The Gascon's tomb with flowers,
Fall sweetly here, O song of mine,
With summer's bloom and showers!
And let the lines that severed seem
Unite again in thee,
As western wave and Gallic stream
Are mingled in one sea!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Oliver Basselin. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
In the Valley of the Vire
Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
And beneath the window-sill,
On the stone,
These words alone:
'Oliver Basselin lived here.'
Far above it, on the steep,
Ruined stands the old Chateau;
Nothing but the donjon-keep
Left for shelter or for show.
Its vacant eyes
Stare at the skies,
Stare at the valley green and deep.
Once a convent, old and brown,
Looked, but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighboring hillside down
On the rushing and the roar
Of the stream
Whose sunny gleam
Cheers the little Norman town.
In that darksome mill of stone,
To the water's dash and din,
Careless, humble, and unknown,
Sang the poet Basselin
Songs that fill
That ancient mill
With a splendor of its own.
Never feeling of unrest
Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed;
Only made to be his nest,
All the lovely valley seemed;
No desire
Of soaring higher
Stirred or fluttered in his breast.
True, his songs were not divine;
Were not songs of that high art,
Which, as winds do in the pine,
Find an answer in each heart;
But the mirth
Of this green earth
Laughed and revelled in his line.
From the alehouse and the inn,
Opening on the narrow street,
Came the loud, convivial din,
Singing and applause of feet,
The laughing lays
That in those days
Sang the poet Basselin.
In the castle, cased in steel,
Knights, who fought at Agincourt,
Watched and waited, spur on heel;
But the poet sang for sport
Songs that rang
Another clang,
Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.
In the convent, clad in gray,
Sat the monks in lonely cells,
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,
And the poet heard their bells;
But his rhymes
Found other chimes,
Nearer to the earth than they.
Gone are all the barons bold,
Gone are all the knights and squires,
Gone the abbot stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars;
Not a name
Remains to fame,
From those mouldering days of old!
But the poet's memory here
Of the landscape makes a part;
Like the river, swift and clear,
Flows his song through many a heart;
Haunting still
That ancient mill,
In the Valley of the Vire.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Birchbrook Mill
A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs
Beneath its leaning trees;
That low, soft ripple is its own,
That dull roar is the sea's.
Of human signs it sees alone
The distant church spire's tip,
And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,
The white sail of a ship.
No more a toiler at the wheel,
It wanders at its will;
Nor dam nor pond is left to tell
Where once was Birchbrook mill.
The timbers of that mill have fed
Long since a farmer's fires;
His doorsteps are the stones that ground
The harvest of his sires.
Man trespassed here; but Nature lost
No right of her domain;
She waited, and she brought the old
Wild beauty back again.
By day the sunlight through the leaves
Falls on its moist, green sod,
And wakes the violet bloom of spring
And autumn's golden-rod.
Its birches whisper to the wind,
The swallow dips her wings
In the cool spray, and on its banks
The gray song-sparrow sings.
But from it, when the dark night falls,
The school-girl shrinks with dread;
The farmer, home-bound from his fields,
Goes by with quickened tread.
They dare not pause to hear the grind
Of shadowy stone on stone;
The plashing of a water-wheel
Where wheel there now is none.
Has not a cry of pain been heard
Above the clattering mill?
The pawing of an unseen horse,
Who waits his mistress still?
Yet never to the listener's eye
Has sight confirmed the sound;
A wavering birch line marks alone
The vacant pasture ground.
No ghostly arms fling up to heaven
The agony of prayer;
No spectral steed impatient shakes
His white mane on the air.
The meaning of that common dread
No tongue has fitly told;
The secret of the dark surmise
The brook and birches hold.
What nameless horror of the past
Broods here forevermore?
What ghost his unforgiven sin
Is grinding o'er and o'er?
Does, then, immortal memory play
The actor's tragic part,
Rehearsals of a mortal life
And unveiled human heart?
God's pity spare a guilty soul
That drama of its ill,
And let the scenic curtain fall
On Birchbrook's haunted mill
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The King's Daughter
WE WERE ten maidens in the green corn,
Small red leaves in the mill-water:
Fairer maidens never were born,
Apples of gold for the king’s daughter.
We were ten maidens by a well-head,
Small white birds in the mill-water:
Sweeter maidens never were wed,
Rings of red for the king’s daughter.
The first to spin, the second to sing,
Seeds of wheat in the mill-water;
The third may was a goodly thing,
White bread and brown for the king’s daughter.
The fourth to sew and the fifth to play,
Fair green weed in the mill-water;
The sixth may was a goodly may,
White wine and red for the king’s daughter.
The seventh to woo, the eighth to wed,
Fair thin reeds in the mill-water;
The ninth had gold work on her head,
Honey in the comb for the king’s daughter.
The ninth had gold work round her hair,
Fallen flowers in the mill-water;
The tenth may was goodly and fair,
Golden gloves for the king’s daughter.
We were ten maidens in a field green,
Fallen fruit in the mill-water;
Fairer maidens never have been,
Golden sleeves for the king’s daughter.
By there comes the king’s young son,
A little wind in the mill-water;
“Out of ten maidens ye’ll grant me one,”
A crown of red for the king’s daughter.
“Out of ten mays ye’ll give me the best,”
A little rain in the mill-water;
A bed of yellow straw for all the rest,
A bed of gold for the king’s daughter.
He’s ta’en out the goodliest,
Rain that rains in the mill-water;
A comb of yellow shell for all the rest,
A comb of gold for the king’s daughter.
He’s made her bed to the goodliest,
Wind and hail in the mill-water;
A grass girdle for all the rest,
A girdle of arms for the king’s daughter.
He’s set his heart to the goodliest,
Snow that snows in the mill-water;
Nine little kisses for all the rest,
An hundredfold for the king’s daughter.
He’s ta’en his leave at the goodliest,
Broken boats in the mill-water;
Golden gifts for all the rest,
Sorrow of heart for the king’s daughter.
“Ye’ll make a grave for my fair body,”
Running rain in the mill-water;
“And ye’ll streek my brother at the side of me,”
The pains of hell for the king’s daughter.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The River Path
No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;
For, from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river's farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,--
A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom
With them the sunset's rosy bloom;
While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those bills of God,
Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before;
And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear!
Sudden our pathway turned from night;
The hills swung open to the light;
Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And, borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!
'So,' prayed we, 'when our feet draw near
The river dark, with mortal fear,
'And the night cometh chill with dew,
O Father! let Thy light break through!
'So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide!
'So let the eyes that fail on earth
On Thy eternal hills look forth;
'And in Thy beckoning angels know
The dear ones whom we loved below!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Exile’s Letter
(To Yüan)
Remember how Tung built us a place to drink in
At Lo-yang south of the T’ien-ching bridge?
White jade and gold bought songs and laughter.
We drank forgetting Court and princes.
Those amongst us, wisest and bravest
On all this side of rivers and oceans,
Hearts high as clouds, and you and I together,
Cared nothing at crossing lakes and mountains
Only to share our thoughts and feelings.
Then I went out south-east to cut the laurel,
You north of Lo River still lost in dreams.
No joy in being parted. Soon back again in mountains,
Tracking the thirty-six twists and turns of valley,
By the streams bright with a thousand flowers,
By endless waters,
Hearing pine-trees sighing,
Till we met the Hang-tung Governor
On a gold and silver saddle,
And Hu the True-Taoist drew us with his pipe playing,
Making unearthly music out of the high tower,
Strange sounds of the mating phoenix.
The Governor’s sleeves kept time to the music,
So that he rose, drunk, and danced a little,
Brought his brocade coat, covered my body.
I fell asleep, head resting in his lap.
By day our hearts rose to the nine heavens.
At evening we scattered like blown stars or rain,
I to my far mountain over hills and waters,
You to your own house by the bridge of Wei.
That winter I made your father’s North City,
Loved you for the way you did me honour,
Sharing your wealth, thinking nothing of it.
Wine there - in cups of amber,
Food there - on plates of jade.
I ate and drank, no thoughts of returning.
We went out to the west. The river parts there,
Round the ancient shrine of a Prince of Chou.
Boats on the waters to drums and piping.
Waves made of dragon scales. Jade-green rushes.
We drank and drank, lived the passing moments,
Forgetting how they go like blossoms or snowfall.
Flushed with wine, warm in glow of sunset,
The hundred-foot deep pool mirroring bright faces,
Dancing-girls delicate as willows in the moonlight,
Notes lost in the silken sleeves’ fluttering.
A white breeze blew their song to the sky,
Winding through the air, twisting in the cloud-lanes.
Never again. Never again such joy.
I went west but got no promotion.
White-headed back to eastern hills.
Met once more south of Wei’s bridge.
Parted again north of Tso’s terrace.
And if you ask my feelings at parting,
They were inside me like Spring flowers falling.
No way to say what’s in the heart. Never.
I call in the boy. Have him kneel here, tie this,
To send my feelings through a thousand miles.
The Lovers Of Marchaid
Dominic came riding down, sworded, straight and splendid,
Drave his hilt against her door, flung a golden chain.
Said: 'I'll teach your lips a song sweet as his that's ended,
Ere the white rose call the bee, the almond flower again.'
But he only saw her head bent within the gloom
Over heaps of bridal thread bright as apple-bloom,
Silver silk like rain that spread across the driving loom.
Dreaming Fanch, the cobbler's son, took his tools and laces,
Wrought her shoes of scarlet dye, shoes as pale as snow;
'They shall lead her wildrose feet all the fairy paces
Danced along the road of love, the road such feet should go' -
But he only saw her eyes turning from his gift
Out towards the silver skies where the white clouds drift,
Where the wild gerfalcon flies, where the last sails lift.
Bran has built his homestead high where the hills may shield her,
Where the young bird waits the spring, where the dawns are fair,
Said: 'I'll name my trees for her, since I may not yield her
Stars of morning for her feet, of evening for her hair.'
But he did not see them ride, seven dim sail and more,
All along the harbor-side, white from shore to shore,
Nor heard the voices of the tide crying at her door.
Jean-Marie has touched his pipe down beside the river
When the young fox bends the fern, when the folds are still,
Said: 'I send her all the gifts that my love may give her, -
Golden notes like golden birds to seek her at my will.'
But he only found the waves, heard the sea-gull's cry,
In and out the ocean caves, underneath the sky,
All above the wind-washed graves where dead seamen lie.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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A Brook In The City
in my heart
a river runs
alluvial, fishes,
leaves, flowers and all
a catfish winds
its way up to the surface
shows its pinkish whiskers
and round mouth
and down in a fleet second
puyu splash
their way down
after a fall
bubble, splash, bubble, splash,
big fish, small fish,
breakdance
down the river
their only way to show
joy and gratitude
for nature's care
like a gymnast
they turn their tails up
bend and sweep
the water swivels
and down they go
head plunging
the river a stage
of tail splashing game
how the world has changed since
thirty years the sweep of a puyu's tail
i could still collect that childhood heart
that had gone afflutter
the river that has changed course
to run through my heart
calming nerves and evoking childhood joy
the river now buried deep
in the town's memory
the river now imprisoned
caged between cement walls
no more fishes, no more splashdance, breakdance
red water, blooms and leaves!
the river that now only has me as its fish
splashing every now and then
to let its sweetness flow forth
the river now buried deep in the earth
in the city's mind
inspired by
A Brook In The City
The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in. But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run -
And all for nothing it had ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.
Robert Frost
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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