Winter Roses
My garden roses long ago
Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks;
Their pale, fair sisters smile no more
Upon the sweet-brier stalks.
Gone with the flower-time of my life,
Spring's violets, summer's blooming pride,
And Nature's winter and my own
Stand, flowerless, side by side.
So might I yesterday have sung;
To-day, in bleak December's noon,
Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, and hues,
The rosy wealth of June!
Bless the young bands that culled the gift,
And bless the hearts that prompted it;
If undeserved it comes, at least
It seems not all unfit.
Of old my Quaker ancestors
Had gifts of forty stripes save one;
To-day as many roses crown
The gray head of their son.
And with them, to my fancy's eye,
The fresh-faced givers smiling come,
And nine and thirty happy girls
Make glad a lonely room.
They bring the atmosphere of youth;
The light and warmth of long ago
Are in my heart, and on my cheek
The airs of morning blow.
O buds of girlhood, yet unblown,
And fairer than the gift ye chose,
For you may years like leaves unfold
The heart of Sharon's rose
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Winter Sunset
Roses in the sky,
Roses in the sea
Bowers of scarlet sky-roses
Take my heart and me.
God was good to make,
This December weather,
All this sky a rose-garden,
Rose and fire together.
To the East are burning
Roses in a garden,
Roses in a rosy field,
Hesper for their warden.
Yonder to the West
Roses all afire,
Mirror now some rare splendid
Rose of their desire.
Pulsing deeper, deeper,
Waves of fire throb on,
Never were such red roses
At sunset or dawn.
Roses on the hills,
Roses in the hollow,
Roses on the wet hedges,
In the shining fallow.
West wind, blow and blow!
That has blown ajar
Gates of God's great rose-garden,
Where His Angels are,
Gathering up the rose-leaves
For a shower of roses
On the night the Lord Babe
His sweet eye uncloses.
All the sky is scarlet
Flaming on the azure.
O, there's fire in Heaven
My heart aches with pleasure.
Leagues of rose and scarlet,
Roses red as blood:
All the world's a rose-garden.
God is good, is good.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Renunciation
ROSE of the desert of my heart,
Moon of the night that is my soul,
Thou can'st not know how sweet thou art,
Nor what wild tides thy beams control.
For all thy heart a garden is,
Thy soul is like a dawn of May.
And garden and dawn might both be his,
Who from them both must turn away.
Oh, garden of the Spring's delight!
Oh, dewy dawn of perfect noon!
I will not pluck thy roses white
Or warm thy May-time into June.
I can but bless thee, moon and rose,
And journey far and very far
To where the night no moonbeam shows,
To where no happy roses are!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
And Doth Not a Meeting Like This
And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away --
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,
The snow -- fall of time may be stealing -- what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We'll wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.
What soften'd remembrances come o'er the heart,
In gazing on those we've been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,
Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng.
As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,
When held to the flame, will steal out on the sight,
So many a feeling, that long seem'd effaced,
The warmth of a meeting like this brings to the light.
And thus, as in memory's bark we shall glide,
To visit the scenes of your boyhood anew,
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining through;
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers,
That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceived for a moment, we'll think them still ours,
And breathe the fresh air of life's morning once more.
So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most,
Is all we can have of the few we hold dear;
And oft even joy is unheeded and lost,
For want of some heart, that could echo it, near.
Ah, well may we hope, when this short life is gone,
To meet in some world of more permanent bliss,
For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hastening on,
Is all we enjoy of each other in this.
But, come, the more rare such delights to the heart,
The more we should welcome and bless them the more;
They're ours, when we meet -- they are lost when we part,
Like birds that bring Summer, and fly when 'tis o'er.
Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink,
Let Sympathy pledge us, through pleasure, through pain,
That, fast as a feeling but touches one link,
Her magic shall send it direct through the chain.
poem by Thomas Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Summons
Some day, when the golden glory
Of June is over the earth,
And the birds are singing together
In a wild, mad strain of mirth;
When the skies are as clear and cloudless
As the skies in June can be,
I would like to have the summons
Sent down from God to me.
Some glowing, golden morning
In the heart of the summer time,
As I stand in the perfect vigour
And strength of my youth's glad prime;
When my heart is light and happy,
And the word seems to bright to me,
I would like to dropp from this earth life,
As a green leaf drops from a tree.
I would not wait for the furrows -
For the faded eyes and hair;
But pass out swift and sudden,
Ere I grow heart-sick with care;
I would break some morn in my singing -
Or fall in my springing walk
As a full-blown flower will sometimes
Drop, all a-bloom, from the stalk.
I think the leaf would sooner
Be the first to break away,
Than to hang alone in the orchard
In the bleak November day.
And I think the fate of the flower
That falls in the midst of bloom
Is sweeter than if it lingered
To die in the autumn's gloom.
And so, in my youth's glad morning,
While the summer walks abroad,
I would like to hear the summons,
That must come, sometime, from God.
I would pass from the earth's perfection
To the endless June above:
From the fullness of living and loving,
To the noon of Immortal Love.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Song Of Roses
'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.
One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red,
Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled,
And for the white rose sing a song--the white rose for the dead.
And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold,
King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old,
Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.
And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee
And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee,
You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing wild and free.
'Tis time to sing of roses! of roses all ablow!
They come again, as sweet, my dear, as those of long ago.
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here you know.
poem by Virna Sheard
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Less’er Love, And A Rose, In My Garden
I am gardener…. I prune, sheer… at times
…at times I have lesser love
And in less is more, very much more
…………….and there is this garden
..the garden, ours by the Grace of the Life Force, supreme God
..there is this Rose, and those Roses there… all chose a place to be
I, the Gardner choose the blooms from which Rose goes to the glass next my bed
I love this Rose, and less but similar those other
….they decide when to bloom
In sping late winter their souls weep, as I sheer, as I must
In spring and summer and early winter we rejoice as they bloom abundantly
…..every night one bloom from The Rose that’ad also chosen me
in the glass of water next my bed read to me, and comfort me
the delicate-, bewitching fragrance the bookmark for tomorrow night
I love that Rose as my chosen
I am gardener…. I prune, sheer… at times
…..only one Rose reads to me… I a lesser Gardener
Lesser, cause I’m only able t’love one Rose…..this Rose here
….those Roses there, some’r lessor Roses, some’r superior Roses, are my friends
Lesser in texture, shape and fiber and fragrance
Some superior in texture, or shape and or fiber and or fragrance
Friends equal in dimension with the Rose, but less in love than the Rose
…..every night one bloom from The Rose, that’s chosen me
in the glass of water next my bed read to me, and comfort me
the delicate-, bewitching fragrance the bookmark for tomorrow night
I love that Rose as my chosen
I, the gardener…. I prune, sheer…. at times
These other Roses who chose my garden
...so valuable in a muchness o’ Friendship,
…the quality their love much the same as that The Rose
Different the lesser my love, even though my caring equals that towards The Rose
We are blessed, those of us in the garden
…the magnificence of this garden in my life is the sumtotal of you all in my garden
I drink your fragrance intoxicated with love
I love The Rose, and my friends these other Roses in the garden Bless this love
poem by Johan Fourie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Love's Autumn
YES, love, the Spring shall come again,
But not as once it came:
Once more in meadow and in lane
The daffodils shall flame,
The cowslips blow, but all in vain;
Alike, yet not the same.
The roses that we pluck’d of old
Were dew’d with heart’s delight;
Our gladness steep’d the primrose-gold
In half its lovely light:
The hopes are long since dead and cold
That flush’d the wind-flowers’ white.
Oh, who shall give us back our Spring?
What spell can fill the air
With all the birds of painted wing
That sang for us whilere?
What charm reclothe with blossoming
Our lives, grown blank and bare?
What sun can draw the ruddy bloom
Back to hope’s faded rose?
What stir of summer re-illume
Our hearts’ wreck’d garden-close?
What flowers can fill the empty room
Where now the nightshade grows?
’T is but the Autumn’s chilly sun
That mocks the glow of May;
’T is but the pallid bindweeds run
Across our garden way,
Pale orchids, scentless every one,
Ghosts of the summer day.
Yet, if it must be so, ’t is well:
What part have we in June?
Our hearts have all forgot the spell
That held the summer noon;
We echo back the cuckoo’s knell,
And not the linnet’s tune.
What shall we do with roses now,
Whose cheeks no more are red?
What violets should deck our brow,
Whose hopes long since are fled?
Recalling many a wasted vow
And many a faith struck dead.
Bring heath and pimpernel and rue,
The Autumn’s sober flowers:
At least their scent will not renew
The thought of happy hours,
Nor drag sad memory back unto
That lost sweet time of ours.
Faith is no sun of summertide,
Only the pale, calm light
That, when the Autumn clouds divide,
Hangs in the watchet height,—
A lamp, wherewith we may abide
The coming of the night.
And yet, beneath its languid ray,
The moorlands bare and dry
Bethink them of the summer day
And flower, far and nigh,
With fragile memories of the May,
Blue as the August sky.
These are our flowers: they have no scent
To mock our waste desire,
No hint of bygone ravishment
To stir the faded fire:
The very soul of sad content
Dwells in each azure spire.
I have no violets: you laid
Your blight upon them all:
It was your hand, alas! that made
My roses fade and fall,
Your breath my lilies that forbade
To come at Summer’s call.
Yet take these scentless flowers and pale,
The last of all my year:
Be tender to them; they are frail:
But if thou hold them dear,
I ’ll not their brighter kin bewail,
That now lie cold and sere.
poem by John Howard Payne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
No Time Like The Old Time
THERE is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring-time sung!
The garden's brightest glories by summer suns are nursed,
But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened first!
There is no place like the old place, where you and I were born,
Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendors of the morn
From the milk-white breast that warmed us, from the clinging arms that
bore,
Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that will look on us no more!
There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,
No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
There is no love like the old love, that we courted in our pride;
Though our leaves are falling, falling, and we're fading side by side,
There are blossoms all around us with the colors of our dawn,
And we live in borrowed sunshine when the day-star is withdrawn.
There are no times like the old times,--they shall never be forgot!
There is no place like the old place,--keep green the dear old spot!
There are no friends like our old friends,--may Heaven prolong their
lives
There are no loves like our old loves,--God bless our loving wives!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Sailor's Garden
There's a soft wind singing in the idle rigging,
High tide splashing, and a young pale moon,
Lights in a window and a fiddle jigging
Over and over there the same short tune.
Oh, was it the tide along the ship's side sighing,
Or was it the sighing wind that breaths and blows,
Came like a voice across the deep crying,
Set my heart a-thinking how my garden grows?
Five years ago it was I planted roses,
Five years ago (the bush is grown a tree):
Five years ago, and once I've seen my posies,
Five years ago - and once they bloomed for me!
I was home in Spring, bloom was in May then,
Birds all were building and buds were on the tree!
When the birds were flown, oh, I was far away then;
When the rose was open I was far at sea.
I was home in autumn; winds of cold November
Shaking the leaf that shivered on the tree;
Brown leaves that sighed of sorrow to remember
Flowers that had fallen and I far at sea.
Oh, many are the roads that lead you here and yonder,
Oh, many are the ways about the world that go;
But the longest way of all's the sailor's way to wander
To the good North Country and an Isle I know.
Oh, many are the winds about the seas a-singing,
Oh, many are the songs they sing both night and noon:
But whether it be good or ill that they come bringing
The best of all's the wind that blows us home in June.
Home, home in June - and soon to be a-going;
Home, home in June - we may not long remain;
Home, home in June, just to see the garden growing,
And then fare you well till you greet us home again.
poem by Cicely Fox Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Roses Are Red (Jessica)
Roses are red Violets are blue,
Honey is so sweet and so are you darling!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
You've made my dreams come true!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I have my brown eyes glued on YOU!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I feel like i have known you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
You are so FINE that you give me the BLUES!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
Lord knows that im falling for you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I just want to Rock with you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
These lips can't wait to be kissing you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I do anything to claim you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I bow down to you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I've never met anyone as HOT as you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
never knew i would meet you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I'm going to bed would you like to come too!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I rather spend my precious time with you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
You are beautiful as sparkling DIAMOND!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
You have me speechless everytime i talk to you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
May i have this dance with you (JESSICA)
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I have mentioned your name so many time i have lost count!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I dont want no-one if i cant have you. #PERIOD
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I want to give you everlasting Joy, Happiness, and especially LOVE!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
I'm the one who will make your dreams come true
Roses are red Violets are blue,
Chilli is hot and so are you!
Roses are red Violets are blue,
JESSICA ITA JAMES WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRIEND! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Roses are red Violets are blue,
THIS POEM WAS MADE FOR YOU.......
poem by Obi Onyenwe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The December Rose
Here's a rose that blows for Chloe,
Fair as ever a rose in June was,
Now the garden's silent, snowy,
Where the burning summer noon was.
In your garden's summer glory
One poor corner, shelved and shady,
Told no rosy, radiant story,
Grew no rose to grace its lady.
What shuts sun out shuts out snow too;
From his nook your secret lover
Shows what slighted roses grow to
When the rose you chose is over.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Change
She leaned out into the soft June weather,
With her long loose tresses the night breeze played;
Her eyes were as blue as the bells on the heather:
Oh, what is so fair as a fair young maid!
She folded her hands, like the leaves of a lily,
'My life, ' she said, 'is a night in June,
Fair and quiet, and calm and stilly;
Bring me a change, O changeful moon!
'Who would drift on a lake forever?
Young hearts weary - it is not strange,
And sigh for the beautiful bounding river;
New moon, true moon, bring me a change! '
The rose that rivalled her maiden blushes
Dropped from her breast, at a strangers feet;
Only a glance; but the hot blood rushes
To mantle a fair face, shy and sweet.
To and fro, while the moon is waning,
They walk, and the stars shine on above;
And one is in earnest, and one is feigning -
Oh, what is so sweet as a sweet young love?
A young life crushed, and a young heart broken,
A bleak wind blows through the lovely bower,
And all that remains of the love vows spoken -
Is the trampled leaf of a faded flower.
The night is dark, for the moon is failing -
And what is so pale as a pale old moon?
Cold is the wind through the tree tops wailing -
Woe that the change should come so soon.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Blood Rose...
There is a rose laying on the ground,
Blood is running out of the rose.
The rose's colour began to fade until it was a pale gray.
This only took around ten minutes.
The rose was pale, cold and dead.
The rose was found by a young man who was walking by.
He wondered why the rose was cold and gray.
He found another one a few days later.
What he didn't know was that the roses represented the broken hearts of teenage girls.
The roses wer originally blood red, only fading to grey when her heart was broken.
The roses were later known as the Blood Rose.
poem by MaddiiAnne O'Leary
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sweet Perfume
A rose arose with rosy hue,
And made my torn heart, so sparkling new,
A rose arose as roses do,
And warmth for its guise within me grew.
A rose arose with beauty bright,
And gladdened my heart with such delight,
A rose arose as roses might,
And set out great charm before my sight.
A rose arose with summertime,
And imbued my heart with songs sublime,
A rose arose as roses climb,
And showed itself in all its prime.
A rose arose inside the room,
And lifted my heart so full of gloom,
A rose arose as roses bloom,
And fused the air with its sweet perfume.
poem by Ernestine Northover
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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 Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Morning-Glories
Oh, dainty daughters of the dawn, most delicate of flowers,
How fitly do ye come to deck day's most delicious hours!
Evoked by morning's earliest breath, your fragile cups unfold
Before the light has cleft the sky, or edged the world with gold.
Before luxurious butterflies and moths are yet astir,
Before the careless has snapped the leaf-hung gossamer,
While spearèd dewdrops, yet unquaffed by thirsty insect-thieves,
Broider with rows of diamonds the edges of the leaves.
Ye drink from day's o'erflowing brim, nor ever dream of noon,
With bashful nod ye greet the sun, whose flattery scorches soon,
Your trumpets trembling to the touch of humming-bird and bee,
In tender trepidation sweet, and fair timidity.
No flower in all the garden hath so wide a choice of hue, -
The deepest purple dies are yours, the tenderest tints of blue;
While some are colourless as light, some flushed incarnadine,
And some are clouded crimson, like a goblet stained with wine.
Ye hold not in your calm, cool hearts the passion of the rose,
Ye do not own the haughty pride the regal lily knows;
But ah, what blossom has the charm, the purity of this,
Which shrinks before the tenderest love, and dies beneath a kiss?
In this wide garden of the world, where he is wise who knows
The bramble from the sweet-brier, the nettle from the rose,
Some lives there are which seem like these, as sensitive and fair,
As far from thought of sin or shame, as free from stain of care.
We find sometimes these splendid souls, when all our world is young.
Where life is crisp with freshness, with unshaken dew-drops hung.
They blossom in the cool, dim hours, ere sunshine dries the air,
But cease and vanish long before the noonday's heat and glare.
And if in manhood's dusty time, fatigued with toil and glow,
We crave the fresh young morning-heart which charmed us long ago,
We seek in vain the olden ways, the shadows moist and fair:
The heart-shaped leaves may linger, but the blossom is not there.
The fairest are most fragile still, the world of being through,
The finest spirits, faint before they lose life's morning dew.
The trials and the toils of time touch not their tender truth,
For, ere earth's stain can cloud them, they achieve immortal youth.
poem by Elizabeth Chase Allen from Littell's Living Age, vol. 129
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Maude Clare
Out of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.
“Son Thomas, ” his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:
“May Nell and you but live as true
As we have done for years;
“Your father thirty years ago
Had just your tale to tell;
But he was not so pale as you,
Nor I so pale as Nell.”
My lord was pale with inward strife,
And Nell was pale with pride;
My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare
Or ever he kissed the bride.
“Lo, I have brought my gift, my lord,
Have brought my gift, ” she said:
To bless the hearth, to bless the board,
To bless the marriage-bed.
“Here’s my half of the golden chain
You wore about your neck,
That day we waded ankle-deep
For lilies in the beck:
“Here’s my half of the faded leaves
We plucked from the budding bough,
With feet amongst the lily leaves, -
The lilies are budding now.”
He strove to match her scorn with scorn,
He faltered in his place:
“Lady, ” he said, - “Maude Clare, ” he said, -
“Maude Clare, ” – and hid his face.
She turn’d to Nell: “My Lady Nell,
I have a gift for you;
Though, were it fruit, the blooms were gone,
Or, were it flowers, the dew.
“Take my share of a fickle heart,
Mine of a paltry love:
Take it or leave it as you will,
I wash my hands thereof.”
“And what you leave, ” said Nell, “I’ll take,
And what you spurn, I’ll wear;
For he’s my lord for better and worse,
And him I love Maude Clare.
“Yea, though you’re taller by the head,
More wise and much more fair:
I’ll love him till he loves me best,
Me best of all Maude Clare.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Monk's Walk
In this sombre garden close
What has come and passed, who knows?
What red passion, what white pain
Haunted this dim walk in vain?
Underneath the ivied wall,
Where the silent shadows fall,
Lies the pathway chill and damp
Where the world-quit dreamers tramp.
Just across, where sunlight burns,
Smiling at the mourning ferns,
Stand the roses, side by side,
Nodding in their useless pride.
Ferns and roses, who shall say
What you witness day by day?
Covert smile or dropping eye,
As the monks go pacing by.
Has the novice come to-day
Here beneath the wall to pray?
Has the young monk, lately chidden,
Sung his lyric, sweet, forbidden?
Tell me, roses, did you note
That pale father's throbbing throat?
Did you hear him murmur, 'Love!'
As he kissed a faded glove?
Mourning ferns, pray tell me why
Shook you with that passing sigh?
Is it that you chanced to spy
Something in the Abbot's eye?
Here no dream, nor thought of sin,
Where no worlding enters in;
Here no longing, no desire,
Heat nor flame of earthly fire.
Branches waving green above,
Whisper naught of life nor love;
Softened winds that seem a breath,
Perfumed, bring no fear of death.
Is it living thus to live?
Has life nothing more to give?
Ah, no more of smile or sigh--
Life, the world, and love, good-bye.
Gray, and passionless, and dim,
Echoing of the solemn hymn,
Lies the walk, 'twixt fern and rose,
Here within the garden close.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Welcome To The Grand Duke Alexis
MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1871
Sung to the Russian national air by the children of the public schools.
SHADOWED so long by the storm-cloud of danger,
Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend,
Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger,
Come to the nation that calls thee its friend!
Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December,
Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow;
Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember
Who was our friend when the world was our foe.
Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee,
See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn
Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee;
Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own!
Fires of the North, in eternal communion,
Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star!
God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union;
Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Seasons
She leant against an archway where roses fell like a waterfall.
Her delicate hands, her rosebud lips to make a young man blush.
Such is the Spring with its exhilarating essences of budding flowers,
trickling streams, birdsong to make the air zing.
Summer came and she toiled in the garden, digging out weeds,
trimming hedgerows as her skin glowed with colour.
The young man visited her everyday and was even more love struck.
Summer, a time of warmth, fulfilment and happy pleasures.
Autumn crept upon them and before they had a chance to see
love, so hot and lustful mellowed and as it died so did the leaves.
The leaves turned red and golden brown
and then came winter's frosty crown.
Winter frosts and winter snow, winter chills makes fingers glow.
The shortest days, the longest nights suddenly lit with Christmas lights.
Does a lover remember a lustful night
or the touch of her hand in the morning light?
poem by Ruth Walters
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!