My Playmate

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,-
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,-
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice;
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-

The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!

poem by John Greenleaf WhittierReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Related quotes

Spring Song III

HERE'S the Spring-time, Sweet!
Earth's green gown is new,
Lambs begin to bleat,
Doves begin to coo,
Birds begin to woo
In the wood and lane;
Sweet, the tale is true
Spring is here again!


I have been discreet
All the winter through;
Now, before your feet,
Blossoms let me strew.
Flowers, as yet, are few;
Will my lady deign
Take this flower or two?
Spring is here again


Make the year complete,
Give the Spring her due!
All the flowers entreat,
All the song-birds sue.
'Twixt the green and blue
Let Love wake and reign,
Let me worship you--
Spring is here again!

poem by Edith NesbitReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Spring.

'Let the light rain on her, the sweet Spring, till
She teems with greenery in the warm air,
Flower-hued, and vocal with the tender joy
Of bleating lambs and young birds on the wing.'
Thus on the cold hill doth the herdsman pray
Beneath his frozen star; the milkmaid, too,
As her raw hands take up the milking-pail,
And the wind freezes in the red dawn near: —
'Come, Spring, earth's sap, and mount in me until
I bloom, a rose of love: smile in mine eyes
Till my love from his wintry hill shall see
The star of youth, and leap into my arms!
O Spring, sweet Spring! but hear my prayer, and I
Shall build thee bowers of roses on the hill,
And all the summer there with bird and bee
Shall joy feast in the beauty of our love!'
Thus do they chant the wintry time away
In hill and vale, the two who look to when
The warmth of beauty takes life's wonder on,
And the rose of the flesh shall bloom for them.

poem by Robert CrawfordReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Cadences

I
(MINOR)

THE ANCIENT memories buried lie,
And the olden fancies pass;
The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly,
And die as the April cowslips die,
That scatter the bloomy grass.

All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead,
And the happy blossoming spring;
The winter comes with its iron tread,
The fields with the dying sun are red,
And the birds have ceas’d to sing.

I trace the steps on the wasted strand
Of the vanish’d springtime’s feet:
Wither’d and dead is our Fairyland,
For Love and Death go hand in hand
Go hand in hand, my sweet!

II
(MAJOR)

OH, what shall be the burden of our rhyme,
And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime?
Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long:
We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song!

O lady of my summer and my spring,
We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing,
And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet,
When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet.

We shall see the roses blowing in the green,
The pink-lipp’d roses kissing in the golden summer sheen;
We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold,
And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crown’d wold.

The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain;
There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain;
But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together,
And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympic weather.

poem by John Howard PayneReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

In Early Spring

O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a gray time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,
Earth, thy familiar daisies.

The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his gray young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.

poem by Alice MeynellReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

In The Prime Of September

The paddocks looking yellow where the capeweed does bloom
And bright golden flowers on the gorse and the broom
And the flute of the shrike thrush is pleasant to hear
In the prime of September in the Spring of the year
At this time of year the musical magpies they sing day and night
How pleasant to hear them piping in the moonlight
And blackbird by his voice you cannot get wrong
He welcomes the dawn of the day with a song
Frisky lambs in the paddocks are frolicking about
When the Goddess of Spring is in the Land of the south
The laughter of the kookaburra the call of the weerloo
The big dark brown bird better known as yellow tail black cockatoo
Fruit bearing trees in blossom and nesting birds sing
In the prime of September in the southern Spring.

poem by Francis DugganReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

The Blackbird's Song

The blackbird's song it takes me far away
To northern Land and to a distant day
His kin birds sang all day until sundown
In leafy groves just out of Millstreet Town.

A blackbird piping on a blackwood tree
Awake the nostalgic memories in me
Again I walk the lush green fields in Spring
And hear the wild birds on the hedgerows sing.

Bluebells bloom by the hedge by the bohreen
And cock pheasant often heard though seldom seen
In the knee high rushes clap his wings and crow
By their calls and songs the birds you get to know.

The distance from the home fields may be long
But whenever the migrant hear the blackbird's song
He or she will see the lushness brought by rain
And walk through fields where wild flowers bloom again.

To it the blackbird's song has a nostalgic ring
It takes the migrant to a distant Spring
And though far distant the Homeland near 'twould seem
And the dipper's song is echoing in the stream.

I thought this thing nostalgia I'd outgrown
But the blackbird's song it carries me back home
And I walk the high fields where I walked before
Up to the hill through the wood at Claramore

poem by Francis DugganReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Spring In Victoria

The bottlebrushes laden with crimson flowers
And there is warmth in the October breeze
And with her Spring has brought her blooms and greenery
And birds are singing on the sunlit trees.

Spring in Victoria my favourite time of year
The birds build their nests and raise their families
The weather not too cool or not too warm
A high today of 17 degrees.

The distinct call sounds of the magpie lark
And the Indian mynah sings his scratchy song
Some birds are easy to identify
And by their voices you never get them wrong.

Spring in Victoria is a time of bloom
And sun shines brightly after the brief showers
The fruit trees cloaked in blossoms of pale pink
And gardens look resplendent in their flowers.

My favourite season is always the spring
And spring in Victoria is now in her prime
The wild birds sing and gardens are in bloom
But Nature's beauty fades with the passage of time.

poem by Francis DugganReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

The Dying Child

He could not die when trees were green,
For he loved the time too well.
His little hands, when flowers were seen,
Were held for the bluebell,
As he was carried o'er the green.

His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee;
He knew those children of the spring:
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing,
Which filled his heart with glee.

Infants, the children of the spring!
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing,
Green grass, and such a sky?
How can they die at spring?

He held his hands for daisies white,
And then for violets blue,
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew,
As childhood's sweet delight.

And then he shut his little eyes,
And flowers would notice not;
Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise,
He now no blossoms got;
They met with plaintive sighs.

When winter came and blasts did sigh,
And bare were plain and tree,
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free,
He died so quietly.

poem by John ClareReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Eight Years Old

SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.

II.

What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.

III.

Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,
Whose molten music thaws his ears
Late frozen, deaf but yesterday
To sounds of dying and dawning years,
Now quickened on his deathward way.

IV.

For deathward now lies winter’s way
Down the green vestibule of years
That each year brightens day by day
With flower and shower till hope scarce fears
And fear grows wholly hope of May.
But we—the music in our ears
Made of love’s pulses as they play
The heart alone that makes it hears.

V.

The heart it is that plays and hears
High salutation of to-day.
Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears
Its own unworthiness to play
Fit music for those eight sweet years,
Or sing their blithe accomplished way.
No song quite worth a young child’s ears
Broke ever even from birds in May.

VI.

There beats not in the heart of May,
When summer hopes and springtide fears,
There falls not from the height of day,
When sunlight speaks and silence hears,
So sweet a psalm as children play
And sing, each hour of all their years,
Each moment of their lovely way,
And know not how it thrills our ears.

VII.

Ah child, what are we, that our ears
Should hear you singing on your way,
Should have this happiness? The years
Whose hurrying wings about us play
Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears
Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,
Being sinless as the spring, that hears
Her own heart praise her every day.

VIII.

Yet we too triumph in the day
That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,
To lighten daylight, and to play
Such notes as darkness knows and fears,
The child whose face illumes our way,
Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,
Whose hand is as the hand of May
To bring us flowers from eight full years.

poem by Algernon Charles SwinburneReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Flowers in Winter

How strange to greet, this frosty morn,
In graceful counterfeit of flower,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown home,
The lights and shades, the purple stains,
And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring
To the dark season's frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summertime.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancy's age renews its youth,
And dim-remembered fictions take
The guise of present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac, -
So old ancestral legends say, -
Could call green leaf and blossom back
To frosted stem and spray.

The dry logs of the cottage wall,
Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;
The clay-bound swallow, at his call,
Played round the icy eaves.

The settler saw his oaken flail
Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;
From frozen pools he saw the pale
Sweet summer lilies rise.

To their old homes, by man profaned
Came the sad dryads, exiled long,
And through their leafy tongues complained
Of household use and wrong.

The beechen platter sprouted wild,
The pipkin wore its old-time green,
The cradle o'er the sleeping child
Became a leafy screen.

Haply our gentle friend hath met,
While wandering in her sylvan quest,
Haunting his native woodlands yet,
That Druid of the West;

And while the dew on leaf and flower
Glistened in the moonlight clear and still,
Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power,
And caught his trick of skill.

But welcome, be it new or old,
The gift which makes the day more bright,
And paints, upon the ground of cold
And darkness, warmth and light!

Without is neither gold nor green;
Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;
Yet, summer-like, we sit between
The autumn and the spring.

The one, with bridal blush of rose,
And sweetest breath of woodland balm,
And one whose matron lips unclose
In smiles of saintly calm.

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!
The sweet azalea's oaken dells,
And hide the banks where roses blow
And swing the azure bells!

O'erlay the amber violet's leaves,
The purple aster's brookside home,
Guard all the flowers her pencil gives
A live beyond their bloom.

And she, when spring comes round again,
By greening slope and singing flood
Shall wander, seeking, not in vain
Her darlings of the wood.

poem by John Greenleaf WhittierReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

An Old-Year Song

As through the forest, disarrayed
By chill November, late I strayed,
A lonely minstrel of the wood
Was singing to the solitude
I loved thy music, thus I said,
When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread
Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now
Thy carol on the leafless bough.
Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer
The sadness of the dying year.

When violets pranked the turf with blue
And morning filled their cups with dew,
Thy slender voice with rippling trill
The budding April bowers would fill,
Nor passed its joyous tones away
When April rounded into May:
Thy life shall hail no second dawn,--
Sing, little bird! the spring is gone.

And I remember--well-a-day!--
Thy full-blown summer roundelay,
As when behind a broidered screen
Some holy maiden sings unseen
With answering notes the woodland rung,
And every tree-top found a tongue.
How deep the shade! the groves how fair!
Sing, little bird! the woods are bare.

The summer's throbbing chant is done
And mute the choral antiphon;
The birds have left the shivering pines
To flit among the trellised vines,
Or fan the air with scented plumes
Amid the love-sick orange-blooms,
And thou art here alone,--alone,--
Sing, little bird! the rest have flown.

The snow has capped yon distant hill,
At morn the running brook was still,
From driven herds the clouds that rise
Are like the smoke of sacrifice;
Erelong the frozen sod shall mock
The ploughshare, changed to stubborn rock,
The brawling streams shall soon be dumb,--
Sing, little bird! the frosts have come.

Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep,
The songless fowls are half asleep,
The air grows chill, the setting sun
May leave thee ere thy song is done,
The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold,
Thy secret die with thee, untold
The lingering sunset still is bright,--
Sing, little bird! 't will soon be night.

poem by Oliver Wendell HolmesReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Blooming

Spring already
Flowers blooming
Birds humming
Sing their sweet
Sweet song

The air
Full of blossoms
Blooming flowers..
Blooming plants…
Blooming love

Spring is clean..
Spring is fresh…
Spring is that new beginning
We pray for in the end

poem by Alexsis DanielsReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Hear The Music Of The Pines

Hear the music of the pines—
Murmuring through the climbing vines,
Sighing through the tree tops high,
Floating upward to the sky,
Then descending where I lie—
Hear the music of the pines!

What sweet thoughts the music brings,
What new gladness from it springs—
As reclining, in a dream,
Watch I, listless, a sunbeam
Dancing on the silvery stream—
What sweet thoughts the music brings!

Hear the music of the pines!
How it 'round my fancy twines—
While fragrances of flowers fill
All the pulses of my will
As I, lingering, linger still—
Hear the music of the pines!

poem by Timothy Thomas FortuneReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

In Spring

See how the trees and the osiers lithe
Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe,
The meadows have donned their cape of flowers,
The air is soft with the sweet May showers,
And the birds make melody:
But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul,
Cometh no more for you or for me.

The lazy hum of the busy bees
Murmureth through the almond trees;
The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head,
The primrose peeps from a mossy bed,
And the violets scent the lane.
But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul,
For you and for me bloom never again.

poem by Ernest Christopher DowsonReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

At Nightfall

The dark is coming o'er the world, my playmate,
And the fields where poplars stand are very still,
All our groves of green delight have been invaded,
There are voices quite unknown upon the hill;

The wind has grown too weary for a comrade,
It is keening in the rushes spent and low,
Let us join our hands and hasten very softly
To the little, olden, friendly path we know.

The stars are laughing at us, O, my playmate,
Very, very far away in lonely skies,
The trees that were our friends are strangers to us,
And the fern is full of whispers and of sighs.

The sounds we hear are not what we may share in,
We may not linger where the white moths roam,
We must hasten yet more swiftly, little playmate,
To the house among the pines that is our home.

The dark is creeping closer yet, my playmate,
And the woods seem crowding nearer as we go,
Oh, how very, very bold have grown the shadows,
They may touch us as they flutter to and fro!

The silence is too dreadful for our laughter,
The night is very full of strange alarms,
But it cannot hurt us now, O, little playmate,
One more step and we are safe in mother's arms!

poem by Lucy Maud MontgomeryReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sing To Me

Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom,
I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom,
I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, -
Sing of the beauty and brightness of life –
Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad!
I am so weary, my soul so sad.
All my earth riches are covered with rust,
All my bright dreams are but ashes and dust.
Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing og the blossoms that open in spring,
How the sweet flowers blow, and the long lichens cling,
Say, though the winter is round about me,
There are bright summers and springs yet to be.
Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing me a song full of hope and of truth,
Brimming with all the sweet fancies of youth!
Say, though my sorrow I may not forget,
I have not quite done with happiness yet.
Sing to me, sing to me!

Lay your soft fingers just here, on my cheek;
Turn the light lower – there- no, do not speak,
But sing! My heart thrills at your beautiful voice;
Sing till I turn from my grief and rejoice.
Sing to me, sing to me!

poem by Ella Wheeler WilcoxReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

These Pines

These pines are not the ones that i'm used to
They won't carry me home when I cry
Am I too far gone to recover
Or can I turn if I try
Should I trade my soul for another
Should I stay and pretend that I'm happy
Like so many times before

Yeah these pines
Are not mine
They don't smell so sweet
like the ones in my mind
And I search the needles
'Til I run out of time
But I don't see you in These Pines.

Di I stumble or falter my words
When I'm saying everything is all right
I'm not one to release my depression
But these trees bring it out every night
Well i don't talk 'cos I'm trying to listen
To the wind take me home through these leaves
But it's quiet and don't hear nothing
Cos the wind doesn't blow through these trees

song performed by by Kasey Chambers from The CaptainReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Darkness Awakens Into Spring

Dreary cold Days are gone
Awesome how the trees begin budding
Ravishing is the beauty the
Easter lilies along the fences
Caddy dids and crickets begin
There Sweet Song as the

Darkness awakens into Spring
Now the birds are beginning to
build there nest high in the trees
Preparing for there young
Every now and then you can hear a

Frogs Croak and a big ribit
From time to time sweet smell of
spring is in the air as the
Darkness awakens into Spring
Angelic is the spring air

Wonderful how the tree and flowers
Awaken to the suns beautiful light
As I am sitting here in my window
I watch as a little family of Cardinals
begin to make the trees in my

Back yard there home every year
They return here to build their
nest for their young
As the Darkness Awakens Into Spring

By Melissia Ann Senter

poem by Melissia Ann SenterReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

Three Songs Of Shattering

I

The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.

Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.

II

Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs play;
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;—
But not in the old way!

I recall a place
Where a plum-tree grew;
There you lifted up your face,
And blossoms covered you.

If the little birds sing,
And the little lambs play,
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring—
But not in the old way!

III

All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was going—ah, spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,—
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.

All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!

poem by Edna St. Vincent MillayReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share

The Green Thicket

All in a green thicket I heard a bird sing,
And blithe though his song was it made the tears spring,
To hear a bird sing as he swung on his spray,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.

All in a green thicket his song it did pour
That told of the Springs that shall come nevermore,
That sang of sweet blossoms, now faded and dry,
All in a green thicket in Aprils gone by.

All in a green thicket that morning in Spring,
I smelt the sharp scent of each young growing thing,
I smelt the sweet herbage all drowned with the dew,
And the time that's gone from me was with me anew.

All in a green thicket at break of the day
It was like the dear voice of a friend far away,
It was like the kind touch of a hand that I know,
And the smile and the tears of dead Aprils ago,

All in a green thicket one morning in Spring,
For to smell the young woodland and hear the bird sing,
Oh, long did I loiter and dream by the way,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.

poem by Cicely Fox SmithReport problemRelated quotes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Share