Eavesdropping
THOUGH the winds but stir on their hoary thrones
Of hemlock and pungent pine,
All the whispering woodland tones
Gossip of things divine, —
Why God is gray in the granite rock,
And green in the lichen flake,
And swift in the darting swallow-flock,
And slow in the lapping lake;
Why God is sweet in the hermit-thrush,
And hoarse in the frog; and why
His touch on the bee is golden plush,
And gauze on the stinging fly;
Why God is life in the mushroom there,
And death in the toadstool here;
Mirth in the dancing maidenhair;
In its hidden adder, fear.
Oh, if this berry that stains my lip
Could teach me the woodland chat,
Science would bow to my scholarship,
And Theology doff the hat.
poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Doongalla
From recent rains the woodland path was greasy up along the wooded hill
And the freshening winds of mid afternoon blew with a wintery chill
And in Doongalla east of Melbourne the white cockies did call
In that quiet old mountain woodland where the stringybarks stand tall.
When I last was in Doongalla six or seven years ago
Across the wooded hillside the wintery winds did blow
And the currawongs were calling as through the woodland they did fly
And from memory I remember that too was in July.
The laugh like calls of the kookaburra in Doongalla's woodland ring
And around his invisible borders the grey shrike thrush whistle and sing
And the pleasant fluting of the beautiful crimson rosellas sweet music to the ear
In the woodlands east of Melbourne them one can see and hear
The chilly winds of the high country blow across the wintery sky
And the yellow robin is chirping on the sixth day of July
And the majestic stringybark gums touch the low lying clouds 'twould seem
In Doongalla by the Basin where Mother Nature reign supreme.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Woodland Peace
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.
No Paradise is lost for them
Who foot by branching root and stem,
And lightly with the woodland share
The change of night and day.
Here all say,
We serve her, even as I:
We brood, we strive to sky,
We gaze upon decay,
We wot of life through death,
How each feeds each we spy;
And is a tangle round,
Are patient; what is dumb
We question not, nor ask
The silent to give sound,
The hidden to unmask,
The distant to draw near.
And this the woodland saith:
I know not hope or fear;
I take whate'er may come;
I raise my head to aspects fair,
From foul I turn away.
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.
poem by George Meredith
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The Frog Prince
As I was walking through the wood
One warm and sunny summer day,
I chanced upon a lovely sight
A swirl of butterflies in flight;
Urged on by curiosity,
I followed down the path they flew
And tumbled through a hidden door
Beneath the leafy woodland floor;
A wondrous sight did then appear
As if by magic to my eyes,
And there within a hollow log
I spied a very princely frog;
Nestled deep within that place
Of musty darkness shone a light,
And there I saw as I did look
A princely frog with poem book;
Lounging in his comfy space
With spectacles perched on his nose,
The frog prince reading unaware
Of being watched as I stood there;
So engrossed within his book,
He did not notice as I sneaked
Behind his chair on velvet feet -
Then all at once our eyes did meet
He dropped the book into his lap,
Complete surprise upon his face -
I turned to run and he did follow
Leaping from his hidden hollow
Swift I ran around the tree
And hiding, waited patiently
And soon he lept upon a rock
And then this frog began to talk;
'My dear, within your book I've read,
Your songs of love and gratitude,
Your tales of woe, of joy and such
I must admit, I like it much! '
But there is one thing I would ask
If I may only be so bold,
Now would you please consider this,
And place upon my lips a kiss?
Well, I believe in fairytales
For heaven knows I've read a few,
And if my memory serves me well,
A little kiss might break the spell;
So, pucker up you ugly frog
Let's get this done while in the mood,
I closed my eyes and then did place
A kiss upon his slimey face;
It wasn't bad, he tasted sweet!
I can't believe I kissed a frog!
My eyes did open then and see
A handsome prince smile back at me!
The prince of poets had been freed,
No longer bound beneath the spell -
And in his freedom I did find
A gentle prince, sincere and kind;
He offered then to mentor me
As poet prince, no longer frog -
And I of course said 'yes' and more...............
That day beneath the woodland floor.
An Old French Poet
When in your sober mood my body have ye laid
In sight and sound of things beloved, woodland and stream,
And the green turf has hidden the poor bones ye deem
No more a close companion with those rhymes we made;
Then, if some bird should pipe, or breezes stir the glade,
Thinking them for the while my voice, so let them seem
A fading message from the misty shores of dream,
Or wheresoever, following Death, my feet have strayed.
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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Lines For A Taoist Adept
My friend lives high on East Mountain.
His nature is to love the hills and gorges.
In green spring he sleeps in empty woodland,
Still there when the noon sun brightens.
Pine-tree winds to dust his hair.
Rock-filled streams to cleanse his senses.
Free of all sound and stress,
Resting on a wedge of cloud and mist.
Ballade of Summer's Sleep
Sweet summer is gone; they have laid her away-
The last sad hours that were touched with her grace-
In the hush where the ghosts of the dead flowers play;
The sleep that is sweet of her slumbering space
Let not a sight or a sound erase
Of the woe that hath fallen on all the lands:
Gather, ye dreams, to her sunny face,
Shadow her head with your golden hands.
The woods that are golden and red for a day
Girdle the hills in a jewelled case,
Like a girl's strange mirth, ere the quick death slay
The beautiful life that he hath in chase.
Darker and darker the shadows pace
Out of the north to the southern sands,
Ushers bearing the winter's mace:
Keep them away with your woven hands.
The yellow light lies on the wide wastes gray,
More bitter and cold than the winds that race,
From the skirts of the autumn, tearing away,
This way and that way, the woodland lace.
In the autumn's cheek is a hectic trace;
Behind her the ghost of the winter stands;
Sweet summer will moan in her soft gray place:
Mantle her head with your glowing hands.
Envoi.
Till the slayer be slain and the spring displace
The might of his arms with her rose-crowned bands,
Let her heart not gather a dream that is base:
Shadow her head with your golden hands.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Unbeknown
In my cavernous dwelling,
(A lookout tower or a cliffside cave) ,
I glare over the sea the wrong way,
Not the left way, as it should be;
Far sighted in eagle eyes,
Stinging from the fear of your sight.
Imagination stirs reddish moss
For hair, speckled hands soft to touch,
What face is staring at me there?
And, forever, without destination
Perth. About as far as a metro area can be,
As I home in this metroplex from Baltimore to Boston,
A steaming jungle of road rage
And the noise of relentless trafficjams
We do have great science and some
Poets of note, not no mountaintops
Of mirth and rattle, of shaking floors and flowers,
And mirth ridden beds.
But birds nest in my hoary head
And in my hoary hands.
They cannot stray if I make them stay.
Shut all the way, like now is my mouth,
Uncomfortably.
poem by Stan Petrovich
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Who Goes Amid the Green Wood
Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?
Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?
The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire -- -
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?
O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear -- -
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair.
poem by James Joyce
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The Hermit Thrush
O wonderful! How liquid clear
The molten gold of that ethereal tone,
Floating and falling through the wood alone,
A hermit-hymn poured out for God to hear!
0 holy, holy, holy! Hyaline,
Long light, low light, glory of eventide!
Love far away, far up. -- up, -- love divine!
Little love, too, for ever, ever, near,
Warm love, earth love, tender love of mine,
In the leafy dark where you hide,
You are mine, -- mine, -- mine!
Ah, my belovèd, do you feel with me
The hidden virtue of that melody,
The rapture and the purity of love,
The heavenly joy that can not find the word?
Then, while we wait again to hear the bird,
Come very near to me, and do not move, --
Now, hermit of the woodland, fill anew
The cool, green cup of air with harmony,
And we will drink the wine of love with you.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Paradise Lost for M 'lady Tara
This used to be a woodland place
when I was young long years ago
but now there’s very little trace
no trees at all. You’d never know
this used to be a woodland place.
New bungalows in row on row
their window panes all screened by lace.
Replace the trees which were laid low.
This used to be a woodland place
where any upset child could go
if they were troubled, in disgrace.
An ideal spot for lying low.
This used to be a woodland place
but that was many years ago
How sad that passing years erase
the secret havens children know.
30-Mar-08
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Sunset
HOODED in angry mist, the sun goes down:
Steel-gray the clouds roll out across the Sea:
Is this a Kingdom? Then give Death the crown,
For here no emperor hath won, save He.
Though from the blackened grasses of the spring
The dead look up to where the swallow flies:
And in this woodland never a bird will sing-
The laughter lives within the sentry's eyes.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Songo River. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fourth)
Nowhere such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through bush and brake,
Links together lake and lake.
Walled with woods or sandy shelf,
Ever doubling on itself
Flows the stream, so still and slow
That it hardly seems to flow.
Never errant knight of old,
Lost in woodland or on wold,
Such a winding path pursued
Through the sylvan solitude.
Never school-boy, in his quest
After hazel-nut or nest,
Through the forest in and out
Wandered loitering thus about.
In the mirror of its tide
Tangled thickets on each side
Hang inverted, and between
Floating cloud or sky serene.
Swift or swallow on the wing
Seems the only living thing,
Or the loon, that laughs and flies
Down to those reflected skies.
Silent stream! thy Indian name
Unfamiliar is to fame;
For thou hidest here alone,
Well content to be unknown.
But thy tranquil waters teach
Wisdom deep as human speech,
Moving without haste or noise
In unbroken equipoise.
Though thou turnest no busy mill,
And art ever calm and still,
Even thy silence seems to say
To the traveller on his way:--
'Traveller, hurrying from the heat
Of the city, stay thy feet!
Rest awhile, nor longer waste
Life with inconsiderate haste!
'Be not like a stream that brawls
Loud with shallow waterfalls,
But in quiet self-control
Link together soul and soul.'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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April Rain
The April rain, the April rain,
Comes slanting down in fitful showers,
Then from the furrow shoots the grain,
And banks are fledged with nestling flowers;
And in grey shaw and woodland bowers
The cuckoo through the April rain
Calls once again.
The April sun, the April sun,
Glints through the rain in fitful splendour,
And in grey shaw and woodland dun
The little leaves spring forth and tender
Their infant hands, yet weak and slender,
For warmth towards the April sun,
One after one.
And between shower and shine hath birth
The rainbow's evanescent glory;
Heaven's light that breaks on mists of earth!
Frail symbol of our human story,
It flowers through showers where, looming hoary,
The rain-clouds flash with April mirth,
Like Life on earth.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Table Turned
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
poem by William Wordsworth
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Cultivated Constraints
Cultivated constraints render revolt in the adolescents mind
Wasted in play the day dissolves into a solution sweet yet hard to find.
Whispering winds toy upon the Joy of greeting those they meet.
Within the dale long forgotten souls beat the ground with defenceless feet.
Glaring through the window pane Apollo’s light seeks no refrain
There lay a child, born wild into the seduction of his mother’s breast
Lay to rest the child who will grow naught but weary within this dread reality of ours.
Awake yet constantly dreaming we’re coming close to knowledge of reality.
Amongst the glories of wisdoms ancient our souls are pastured
Grace follows cosmic rhythms in pace as above a flock of blackbirds
Swift in formation, beneath a sparkling sky, dance a dance in meditation.
Consider the muse born of harmony aloft the winds of the songs that dreamers sing.
Woodland nymphs frolic throughout the country side
As urban jungles bellow Serpents of smoke into a cradle sky,
They’re suffocating us – we the infants of the fruit tree.
poem by David Lacey
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My Frog
As I was walking by a pungent lake
Just outside of Meigs,
I stopped and did a double-take,
A frog with four hind legs! ! ! ! !
He was a rather normal frog,
From his head down to his waist,
And even with his excess limbs,
He had a certain grace.
So I picked him up and took him home
And there he would be today,
If that Molly girl hadn't come along
And stolen my frog away.
She snuck into my house, that thief,
And took him from his bed,
Then later had the gall to say:
'I had to bury him cause he was dead! '
Well one day Molly came to school
And said something about her frog
And when I questioned mine's whereabouts
She said she'd found hers on a log.
She went on to say that yesterday
Her little frog had died;
She sat there a while, just sat and sat
And cried, cried, cried, cried, cried.
I went to her frog's funeral,
Just to ease my suspicious mind,
And there lay a frog with four hind legs
Which looked a lot like mine!
Once again I questioned her
About her frog's strange state
And then she told the strange tale
Which I will now relate.
As she walked through my house
She heard a small voice say,
'I will gwant you any wish
If you'll take me away.
'Fow I'm not an owdinary fwog,
And with some love and cawe,
I will be bown again with golden wings
And Heavenly will be my share.'
So she took him away with her,
Thinking surely to love and care,
For a frog who'd someday have golden rings
And wealth beyond compare.
Well she loved him and loved him with all of her heart,
Then one day he ended up dead;
She'd squeezed him and squeezed him with all of her love,
Until puss oozed out of his head.
It turned out that he'd said golden wings,
And that he'd wanted to die,
Because he'd rather fly away,
Than live his life inside.
Her selfishness he'd seen plenty of,
And my trust, he'd seen it too.
He'd known more than we two combined
Or I'm a Moldy Shoe! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
poem by Lydia Thacker
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The Home of My Heart
Not here in the populous town,
In the playhouse or mart,
Not here in the ways gray and brown,
Bnt afar on the green-swelling down,
Is the home of my heart.
There the hillside slopes down to a dell
Whence a streamlet has start;
There are woods and sweet grass on the swell,
And the south winds and west know it well:
‘Tis the home of my heart.
There’s a cottage o’ershadowed by leaves
Growing fairer than art,
Where under the low sloping eaves -
No false hand the swallow bereaves:
‘Tis the home of my heart.
And there as you gaze down the lea,
Where the trees stand apart,
Over grassland and woodland may be
You will catch the faint gleam of the sea
From the home of my heart.
And there In the rapturous spring,
When the morning rays dart
O’er the plain, and the morning birds sing,
You may see the most beautiful thing
In the home of my heart;
For there at the casement above,
Where the rosebushes part,
Will blush the fair face of my love:
Ah, yes I It is this that will prove
‘Tis the home of my heart.
poem by Francis William Bourdillon
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The Song of Nature
Immersed in a color-wheel of ever-changing,
Undulating light from the setting sun,
I sit silent and motionless upon a footstool hill
At the feet of the great rock-ribbed granite Sierras.
Held firm within this vast panorama of undisturbed geological
Evolution, my eye is led from the valley floor, past dappled
Terrestrial hues and tones of green, gray and brown,
To saw-toothed peaks etched upon a background of gracious,
Deepening empurpled evening sky.
Surrounding me, the cry of the hawk;
The caw of the crow; the lazy hum of bees;
The panpipe song of the birds;
The soft-voiced spatter and splash of the creek;
The gentle brush of breeze, wafting with the scent of sage,
Whispering through the boughs of pines, rustling the trembling
Aspen leaves, all filling the solitude with sound.
Each contributing to the constant, yet never the same,
Gladdening mirth of nature's song.
As an audience of one, in the open theater
Of Being, through sight, sound and smell
I witness the ineffable splendor of nature's
Dance of life.
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Autumn in Prison
Here where no tree changes,
Here in a prison of pine,
I think how Autumn ranges
The country that is mine.
There — rust upon the chill breeze-
The woodland leaf now whirls ;
There sway the yellowing birches
Like dainty dancing girls.
Oh, how the leaves are dancing
With Death at Lassington !
And Death is now enhancing
Beauty I walked upon.
The roads with leaves are Uttered,
Yellow, brown, and red.
The homes where robins twittered
Lie ruin ; but instead
Gaunt arms of stretching giants
Stand in the azure air,
Cutting the sky in pattern
So common, yet so fair,
The heart is kindled by it.
And lifted as with wine.
In Lassington and Highnam—
The woodlands that were mine,
poem by Frederick William Harvey
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Moss on a Wall
Dim dreams it hath of singing ways,
Of far-off woodland water-heads,
And shining ends of April days
Amongst the yellow runnel-beds.
Stoop closer to the ruined wall,
Whereon the wilful wilding sleeps,
As if its home were waterfall
By dripping clefts and shadowy steeps.
A little waif, whose beauty takes
A touching tone because it dwells
So far away from mountain lakes,
And lily leaves, and lightening fells.
Deep hidden in delicious floss
It nestles, sister, from the heat -
A gracious growth of tender moss
Whose nights are soft, whose days are sweet.
Swift gleams across its petals run
With winds that hum a pleasant tune,
Serene surprises of the sun,
And whispers from the lips of noon.
The evening-coloured apple-trees
Are faint with July's frosty breath.
But lo! this stranger getteth ease,
And shines amidst the strays of Death.
And at the turning of the year,
When August wanders in the cold,
The raiment of the nursling here
Is rich with green and glad with gold.
Oh, friend of mine, to one whose eyes
Are vexed because of alien things,
For ever in the wall moss lies
The peace of hills and hidden springs.
From faithless lips and fickle lights
The tired pilgrim sets his face,
And thinketh here of sounds and sights
In many a lovely forest-place.
And when by sudden fits and starts
The sunset on the moss doth burn,
He often dreams, and, lo! the marts
And streets are changed to dells of fern.
For, let me say, the wilding placed
By hands unseen amongst these stones,
Restores a Past by Time effaced,
Lost loves and long-forgotten tones!
As sometimes songs and scenes of old
Come faintly unto you and me,
When winds are wailing in the cold,
And rains are sobbing on the sea.
poem by Henry Kendall
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