To An English Friend
THE seed that wasteful autumn cast
To waver on its stormy blast,
Long o'er the wintry desert tost,
Its living germ has never lost.
Dropped by the weary tempest's wing,
It feels the kindling ray of spring,
And, starting from its dream of death,
Pours on the air its perfumed breath.
So, parted by the rolling flood,
The love that springs from common blood
Needs but a single sunlit hour
Of mingling smiles to bud and flower;
Unharmed its slumbering life has flown,
From shore to shore, from zone to zone,
Where summer's falling roses stain
The tepid waves of Pontchartrain,
Or where the lichen creeps below
Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.
Though fiery sun and stiffening cold
May change the fair ancestral mould,
No winter chills, no summer drains
The life-blood drawn from English veins,
Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows
The love that with its fountain rose,
Unchanged by space, unwronged by time,
From age to age, from clime to clime!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Life Is Lovely All the Year
When the buds are blossoming,
Smiling welcome to the spring,
Lovers choose a wedding day -
Life is love in merry May!
Spring is green - Fal lal la!
Summer's rose - Fal lal la!
It is sad when Summer goes,
Fal la!
Autumn's gold - Fal lal la!
Winter's grey - Fal lal la!
Winter still is far away -
Fal la!
Leaves in Autumn fade and fall;
Winter is the end of all.
Spring and summer teem with glee:
Spring and summer, then, for me!
Fal la!
In the Spring-time seed is sown:
In the Summer grass is mown:
In the Autumn you may reap:
Winter is the time for sleep.
Spring is hope - Fal lal la!
Summer's joy - Fal lal la!
Spring and Summer never cloy,
Fal la!
Autumn, toil - Fal lal la!
Winter, rest - Fal lal la!
Winter, after all, is best -
Fal la!
Spring and summer pleasure you,
Autumn, ay, and winter, too -
Every season has its cheer;
Life is lovely all the year!
Fal la!
poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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Song Of The Desert Lark
Love, love, in vain
We count the days of Spring.
Lost is all love's pain,
Lost the songs we sing.
Sunshine and Summer rain,
Winter and Spring again
Still the years shall bring,
But we die.
Love, what a noon
Of happy love was ours!
Grief came too soon,
Touched the Autumn flowers,
Grief and the doubt of death,
Mixed with the roses' breath.
Darkly the Winter lowers,
And we die.
His torch, love, the Sun
Turns to the stormy West,
Like a fair dream begun
Changing to jest.
Love, while our souls are one,
Still let us sing the Sun,
Sing and forget the rest
And so die.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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After M'lady -1937 - Responsum to Edna St. Vincent Millay I know I am but summer to your heart
Although harsh winter weighs down restless heart,
I know I'm not but cusp, husk for full year.
Warm welcome will expand, dwarf other part,
swing brooding moods to mine shared joys sincere.
No harvest rich with golden fruits to sell
need I, nor wise saws winter hoar may bring -
who loves well Hell defies, time's ebb and swell
weathered, all storms calmed, splices angel wing.
Love therefore says: 'O time suspend thy flows! ',
range changeless and defy fate's hidden drums,
so two true steady stay, thorn shorn from rose,
no far migration, ceaseless summer comes.
No pause, no cause to seek another clime
eternal summer gilding timeless rhyme.
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(12 December 2009)
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Last Rose Of Summer
Throughout the soft and timeless days of august
til now the shadows begin to grow much longer
The sunsets fire has deepened blood red
I give you this, the last rose of summer
A token of my unyielding love
So when the winters mantle stills the earth
And all around seems dead and cold
This rose reminds you of a time when all was warm and living
Do not despair, mother nature simply rests
In sleep she has well earned
til one day not so very far from now
With the opening of the first rose buds I shall return
A token of my unyielding love
So that when winters mettle steals the earth
And all around seems dead and cold
This rose reminds you of a time when all was warm and living
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
In your long shadows
The last rose of summer
In the sunset
The last rose of summer
Take this rose that I give you
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
Dont worry about the winter
The last rose of summer
I shall return
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
(fade)
song performed by by Judas Priest
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Water Anew
From mountain high to valley low, the warmth of springs thaw runoff comes clear cold water from the melting snow.
Spring rain, cool and clear, mist and fog, early morning's dew, creeks, rivers, lakes renew.
Though mud stained from the thaw, the water soon will clear, life sustaining, life anew.
With summer weather comes light or heavy rains, sprinkle, mist or fog, life sustaining, life anew.
With autumn arrives the cold, then frost, soon after winter follows, sleet and snow, water turns to ice.
Though covered with ice and winters snow, the water in creeks, rivers and lakes renew until springs thaw, the water still flows.
Whether spring, summer, autumn or winter, water, life sustaining, life anew.
poem by Alvin Schaut
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Summer, autumn, winter, spring
I like the warmth of rains in summer time.
It's so nice and pleasant in any clime.
I like the golden autumn when it dances blues,
When I let my imagination loose.
I like the whiteness of the snow when winter comes
I don't feel any cold when I am in your arms.
But when the blossom of the spring comes
I'll overcome the oceans, mountains and seas
And on the wings of love I'll fly to you
For only one reason - to tell you: I LOVE YOU!
poem by Larisa Rzhepishevska
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Love Has Its Seasons
A cool chill sweeps through the air
winter is approaching
soon the grass will have a blanket of white
nights will get longer
then soon it will be over for another year.
Spring will be with us
new growth will spring up from the ground
the days will get warmer
when summer once again appears
spreading its colours everywhere.
Then it is back into autumn once more
and the chilly air that it brings.
Love has its seasons also to share
sometimes it can be frosty
and winter chills fill the air
it can be cold
like the white blanket of snow.
Love can be like spring
imparting new life as it begins to grow.
The glow that if offers
is like the warming summer sun
that blossoms into beauty
before the ravages of autumn come
and the years trickle away.
poem by David Harris
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Beneath Things of Steel By (Mimi M. Meyer)
Do not change...
How would I consume fruit
From these unfamiliar trees?
How would I recognize that branch
That always embarks me from the distance?
Would it be strong enough to hold me...
Without breaking?
Ode to your simple heart,
That emblazoned blood red orbit
Fiery and gazing;
Falling inward beneath your shore...
Steadfast, without even a single blink.
And what would substitute your waters?
What would make up of this lyrical streamline
That I so love and adore?
The only gravel of sand that I would allow...
To let me sink.
My love,
Do not bury of me
Beneath things of steel.
Those cold thoughtless things
That only know how to cut.
I know your soul wants to mirror,
But remember that I love you...
In you I know myself.
Please do not forget,
Do I mean more to you in your pain
Or in that thoughtless silver hour? ...
Ode to your simple heart
That blood red orbit; emblazoned and golden
I see myself within you; fiery and gazing.
Both of us falling inward beneath your shore...
Steadfast, without even a single blink.
The Autumn Sing
Here’s the autumn sing…
A symphony from its falling leaf…
Catching the wind from a future winter…
Rolling through a shy light…
Oh autumn shall not die in winter…
As a promise summer will surely come….
Ah autumn is a second spring…
Not all could see, all leaf is flower….
Autumn warn a terrible winter phase….
No one listen, No one will hear it…
As it is only the sound of silence….
Who can hold an indefinite sound...?
No one embrace the autumn….
As it is only a sad phase…
It gives nothing but an autumn chill….
Spring always comes with a better glory…
Oh autumn with its broken feather…
Could other season patch it up again?
No other season will devote their being….
Autumn suffers alone….
Autumns leaf keep on falling…
Spring comes cheerfully…
Summer comes strongly….
Winter always comes coldly…..
But autumn changes its face every time….
No one knows the differences….
Just the secret of the nature…
Why can’t it’d be a spring?
Why can’t it’d be summer?
Why can’t it’d be winter?
Ah autumn dance again between all the falling leaf…
It enjoys its sadness…
It embraces its pain….
As only from autumn all painter learn…
How to capture a true hidden beauty…
All speaks the same in every season….
But autumn remain different…..
For autumn is an alone singer…
Only a genuinely soul painter could witness its beauty….
That’s all the autumn need….
A silence audience....
Who can make other being see….
A glance of its beauty...
poem by Eva Clara Harahap
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I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Winter's Whitest Spurts
Although John Clare declared that he
saw spring in winter’s whitest spurts,
for many this is hard to see
when, freezing, all our body hurts,
and winter’s direst discontent
makes cold blasts pierce the frozen soul.
We wonder where the summer went
when icy winds exact their toll,
and whistling toll for all of us
on nights we wish would be more silent.
each blast a blaring blunderbuss
that’s aimed to make us all an island,
disconnected from the spring
and summer, fall, that we remember
when we for warmth our cold arms fling
around each other in December.
Inspired by John Clare’s “The Winter’s Spring”:
THE winter comes; I walk alone,
I want no bird to sing;
To those who keep their hearts their own
The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please-no bees to hum-
The coming spring's already come.
I never want the Christmas rose
To come before its time;
The seasons, each as God bestows,
Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm hing;
'Tis but the winter garb of spring.
I never want the grass to bloom:
The snowstorm's best in white.
I love to see the tempest come
And love its piercing light.
The dazzled eyes that love to cling
O'er snow-white meadows sees the spring.
I love the snow, the crumpling snow
That hangs on everything,
It covers everything below
Like white dove's brooding wing,
A landscape to the aching sight,
A vast expanse of dazzling light.
It is the foliage of the woods
That winters bring-the dress,
White Easter of the year in bud,
That makes the winter Spring.
The frost and snow his posies bring,
Nature's white spurts of the spring.
12/24/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Roses
Oh, wind of the spring-time, oh, free wind of May,
When blossoms and bird-song are rife;
Oh, joy for the season, and joy for the day,
That gave me the roses of life, of life,
That gave me the roses of life.
Oh, wind of the summer, sing loud in the night,
When flutters my heart like a dove;
One came from thy kingdom, thy realm of delight,
And gave me the roses of love, of love,
And gave me the roses of love.
Oh, wind of the winter, sigh low in thy grief,
I hear thy compassionate breath;
I wither, I fall, like the autumn-kissed leaf,
He gave me the roses of death, of death,
He gave me the roses of death.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Long Lost Love and Winter Chills
The frost that bites my nose and the turning blue of toes,
The rose, the snow she spills,
Lost love and winter chills.
The Christmas lights that twinkled, happy smiles from happy people,
Winter moon she beckons still,
Long lost love and winter chills.
The ragged tramp alone, in a doorway does bemoan,
Alas for the tinsel thrills,
Farewell to love and winter chills.
The time that Christ was born, another child, a frozen morn,
A world of bitter pills,
Long lost love and winter chills.
That winter night did pass, and found frozen to a glass,
His hands did clutch a memory, of a child and a life now passed,
No kindness shall be found, cardboard box upon the ground,
Just a distant crow shall shrill and far away upon a hill,
A beating heart shall banish forth, lost love and winter chills.
poem by Fergus Michael Condron
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Lines Written at Thorp Green
That summer sun, whose genial glow
Now cheers my drooping spirit so
Must cold and distant be,
And only light our northern clime
With feeble ray, before the time
I long so much to see.
And this soft whispering breeze that now
So gently cools my fevered brow,
This too, alas, must turn --
To a wild blast whose icy dart
Pierces and chills me to the heart,
Before I cease to mourn.
And these bright flowers I love so well,
Verbena, rose and sweet bluebell,
Must droop and die away.
Those thick green leaves with all their shade
And rustling music, they must fade
And every one decay.
But if the sunny summer time
And woods and meadows in their prime
Are sweet to them that roam --
Far sweeter is the winter bare
With long dark nights and landscapes drear
To them that are at Home!
poem by Anne Brontë
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Verses For Pictures
Day.
I am Day; I bring again
Life and glory, Love and pain:
Awake, arise! from death to death
Through me the World’s tale quickeneth.
Spring.
Spring am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.
Summer.
Summer looked for long am I;
Much shall change or e’er I die.
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss.
Autumn.
Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand:
Nought but rest seems good to me,
Speak the word that sets me free.
Winter.
I am Winter, that do keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?
Night.
I am Night: I bring again
Hope of pleasure, rest from pain:
Thoughts unsaid ’twixt Life and Death
My fruitful silence quickeneth.
poem by William Morris
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Easter
I know the Summer fell asleep
Long weary months ago;
Heaped high above her grave I saw
The heavy winter snow;
Say, sparrow, then, what word you bring;
Is it her requiem you sing?
The meadow lark is mute, the wren
Forgets his late abode,
No throstle answering fluteth near,
Yet never prelude flowed
From ivied bosk or verdant slope
More brimming with delight and hope!
I, listening, seem to see the blooms
That were whilom so dear,
And voices loved and silent long
I, listening, seem to hear;
And longings in my breast confer,
And sweet, prophetic pulses stir.
"Thou lonely one," they seem to say,
"Lost Summer shall return;
Wreathed in her shadowy tresses shall
The roses blissful burn;
Wan lilies at her feet shall lie,
And wind-flowers on her bosom sigh.
"Here, from this rough and lowly bed,
The little celandine
Shall lift her sunny glances to
The balmy eglantine;
And flags shall flaunt by yonder lake,
And fair Narcissus there awake."
I know the Summer fell asleep
Long weary months ago;
But ah! all is not lost, poor heart,
That's laid beneath the snow;
There wait, grown cold to care and strife,
Things costliest, dying into life:
All changes, but Life ceases not
With the suspended breath;
There is no bourne to Being, and
No permanence in Death;
Time flows to an eternal sea,
Space widens to Infinity!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Bad Blood
Desperate man, desperate times
Desperate heart
Once she was mine
Bad blood, cold sweat
The more I give, the less I get
She picked clean to the bone
Black ice, danger zone
Bad blood runs through her veins
Shes got bad blood
Shell never change
I held on long as I could
But that girl - bad blood
Perfect crimes, no clues
That girls just bad news
I held on long as I could
Bad girl, bad blood
She cut clean to the bone
Tight jeans, danger zone
Girls got bad blood ...
Glass heart, fools gold
Her blood is stone cold
Held on long as I could
But that girls just no good
She picked clean to the bone
Black ice, danger zone
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Halfdan Kjerulf
Winter had sought his life's tree to o'erthrow,
Youthful and strong. But his blood's vernal flow
Saved it from death through the cold and the maiming;
Late in the summer bright flowers were flaming,
Late in the autumn they swelled to completeness,-
Fruits that were few, but of fragrance and sweetness.
Poets received them to endless seed-sowing,
Where for his folk endless summer is glowing,-
While more and more,
Stricken he hung o'er the death-river's shore,
Fighting in weakness the winter abhorred,
Fighting for summer, the singer's reward,
Fighting while failing, with modesty rare,
Soon but in prayer.
Summer received him! He now is victorious!
Now, while they harvest the yellowing corn,
Now, while the hills hear the notes of the horn,
He
enters glorious.
Mirrored in him is true poetry's force,
Marked by our winter, in summer its source.
E'en as the air with its quivering sheen,
Leaves of the forests and red peaks serene,
Waters that wander 'mid meadows delaying
Sound with the music the sunshine is playing,-
Poetry also shall leap with new life,
If it, though failing, is faithful in strife:-
Leap from death's thronging:-
Soon comes the summer with summer's pure longing.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In Snow-Time
How should I chose to walk the world with thee,
Mine own beloved? When green grass is stirred
By summer breezes, and each leafy tree
Shelters the nest of many a singing bird?
In time of roses, when the earth doth lie
Dressed in a garment of midsummer hues,
Beneath a canopy of sapphire sky,
Lulled by a soft wind's song? Or should I choose
To walk with thee along a wintry road,
Through flowerless fields, thick-sown with frosty rime,
Beside an ice-bound stream, whose waters flowed
In voiceless music all the summer-time?
In winter dreariness, or summer glee,
How should I choose to walk the world with thee?
The time of roses is the time of love,
Ah, my dear heart! but winter fires are bright,
And in the lack of sunshine from above
We tend more carefully love's sacred light.
The path among the roses lieth soft,
Sun-kissed and radiant under youthful feet;
But on a wintry way true hands more oft
Do meet and cling in pressure close and sweet.
There is more need of love's supporting arm
Along life's slippery pathway, in its frost;
There is more need for love to wrap us warm
Against life's cold, when summer flowers are lost.
Let others share thy life's glad summer glow,
But let me walk beside thee in its snow.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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Danger Zone
Shaking off the tresholds of a long forgotten dream
And you just can't make it last
Coaching paradise on a personal line
But you get fired to fast
And you lie, memories drifting by
Love don't make it on those pin-striped nights
When you're looking through someone's disguise
You can't make it alone, so you gotta make a move
But you're looking at nobody's eyes
Well that's love, or maybe love come and go
Looking for love is a danger zone
Love don't go begging in the danger zone
You won't get nothing from the danger zone
Tales that you tell from the stories that you'll hear
And you'll get what you can while you may
Don't understand when you're looking for a dame
But it's only a heartbreak away
And you'll learn, faking has no return
No way when you're feeling that way
Will your feet get caught up in the crowd
And the song that you sing is too soft to be heard
But your speakers are way too loud
Like the pain, loving is no big game
Looking for love is a danger zone
No don't go living in the danger zone
You won't get nothing from the danger zone
Don't take no chances in the danger zone
Love don't go begging in the danger zone
No don't go living in the danger zone
You won't get nothing from the danger zone
Don't take no chances in the danger zone
Love don't go begging in the danger zone
song performed by by Rainbow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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