Stony Grey Soil
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
The laugh from my love you thieved;
You took the gay child of my passion
And gave me your clod-conceived.
You clogged the feet of my boyhood
And I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick tongued mumble.
You told me the plough was immortal!
O green-life conquering plough!
The mandril stained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.
You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of cowards' brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,
You fed me on swinish food
You flung a ditch on my vision
Of beauty, love and truth.
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
You burgled my bank of youth!
Lost the long hours of pleasure
All the women that love young men.
O can I stilll stroke the monster's back
Or write with unpoisoned pen.
His name in these lonely verses
Or mention the dark fields where
The first gay flight of my lyric
Got caught in a peasant's prayer.
Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco-
Wherever I turn I see
In the stony grey soil of Monaghan
Dead loves that were born for me.
poem by Patrick Kavanagh
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Related quotes
A Commonplace Day (after Thomas Hardy's poem of that name)
All day from dawn to dusk, the drizzling rain;
everything today is painted grey;
and as for me - I shut my heart, alas;
and took that paint and washed my mind with grey…
Outside the window, just a pane away:
the eager soil, the leaves of plant and tree
bathe and sing and grow and shine with praise;
yet why do I not hear that song, in me?
more feeble I than plant or soil or tree;
I cannot even sing their humble praise;
why build a house against the water’s grace,
and leave my wizened heart dry, graceless, mean?
Better today would it have useful been
to be a raincloud; humble; generous;
free of grey thought that idly renders me
less than the least of servants of my God;
so make me grey as generous raincloud; clod
of saturated, grateful earth; write, rain;
shout, whisper, words of flowing gratitude;
on greying days, paint grey as purest joy;
and be again, that drenched and laughing boy..
poem by Michael Shepherd
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winter Algarve
Winter Algarve.
The hills in the vale are stony and grey except where
they have made a road up to a new house that looks
shiny and bright for now, but will in time when paint
fades look as it belongs. “That old house you see up
there was built in 2009, ” a tourist guide will say.
The Northerly flies low and cold today olive trees
look silvery as big gorillas standing still contemplating
a sky that has white, billowing clouds sailing across;
a regatta were no one drowns and the winner turns
into a miasma and never seen again
The stones on the old wall look like grey skulls with
holes in like another war mass grave found in Poland.
Everything dies and lives, the grass is green and tiny
Flowers grow out of weed, paradise for wooly backs,
but not for those- the human ones- from St. Helens.
The vines in black soil look like dead soldiers held up
by wire, not a hint of jollity to come. My wintery vale,
winds gets cold my face is as frozen as a newscaster’s
botoxed face, but since I need not look young I hurry
home to thaw it into familiar wrinkles.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Forgotten Fertility Myth
Pranab k c
27/06/2011
a deep depression
carries monsoon again
its raining
five days at a stretch
day and night
she is wet
her chastity
waiting to be ploughed
soil so soft
to be mould in creation
plough hard
my peasant friend
pour dropp to form seed
your personal rain
would make her corny
every dream
of your personal cloud
would make her smile festive
fertile soil seeks seedling
cultivate you the peasant
cultivate hard
cultivate with care
cultivate with unending passion
She waits to bear all the pain
for a pleasure of exposing a life again
poem by Pranab K. Chakraborty
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The Grey World
Grey nights in the wind,
And the grey-faced dead.
Grey hairs in my head,
And grey eyes in my mind.
Grey mists in the morn,
And grey waves that rave,
Grey mould on my grave,
And grey eyes forlorn.
Grey clouds in the sky,
And the grey world asleep,
Grey ghosts that sigh,
And grey eyes that weep.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Grey, Grey Sky
Someday I will ride the great bird
Into the sky, into the grey
And will take a bright secret of mine
Into the grey, grey sky.
And the light will come, piercing my eyes
Out of the sky, out of the grey
Come blinding and searing these eyes
Out of the grey, grey sky.
And I will find comfort in this
In the wide sky, in the wide grey
In the painful dark brightness of light
Light of the grey, grey sky.
My secret will fly away home
Into the sky, into the grey
And the great bird will follow it there
Into the grey, grey sky.
And I will be riding that bird
Bird of the sky, bird of the grey
And I will come home once again
Home to the grey, grey sky.
But for now I am weighted, earthbound
One of the mud, one of the ground
And I write this sad song to sad sound
Girl of the pavement sighs.
poem by Grace Hutton
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The Ploughman
ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
OCTOBER 4, 1849
CLEAR the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam!
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!
First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod;
Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain;
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.
These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings;
This is the page, whose letters shall be seen
Changed by the sun to words of living green;
This is the scholar, whose immortal pen
Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men;
These are the lines which heaven-commanded Toil
Shows on his deed,--the charter of the soil.
O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time
We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead;
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;
Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.
No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed
In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed;
By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests
The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests;
By these fair plains the mountain circle screens,
And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines,
True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil
To crown with peace their own untainted soil;
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind,
If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind,
These stately forms, that bending even now
Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough,
Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land,
The same stern iron in the same right hand,
Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run,
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Love That Dog
Love that dog
like a flower loves the soil
i said i love that dog
like a fower loves the soil
and i love to call my dog
'Hey there max'
while he wags his tail.
I SAID I LOVE THAT DOG,
LIKE A FLOWER LOVES SOIL!
(inspired by Mr myres in the book 'lov that dog')
poem by Laura Venter
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Soil Is A Soul Of Life
Soil what is soil Lord?
soil is life seed
soil is a living organism
soil is a loom
from which you were made
dust you were dust you will be
Soil what is soil Scientist?
soil is a critical
part
of an ecosystem
soil provides
important nutrients
for plants in
an ecosystem
soil helps
anchor
plants
to keep
plants
in place
soil absorbs
holds water
for plants
soil absorbs
holds water
for animals
lakes rivers
to use
soil provides
a home
for many species
lots of living
organisms
soil
regenerates life
dust you were dust you will be
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Shades of Grey
Black is the color of the night
Grey is the shadow of you I sight
White is the shirt you wear
Black is your suit I declare
White is the wall you lean against
Grey is our path I sensed
Black is the memory I lost
Black is the road we never crossed
Grey is the prospect of the day
Grey is the taxi driving away
Black is the truth to never find you
Black is everything I can't undo
Black is my room without light
White is my color of hope in spite
Grey is the circle around my heart
Black is the truth like a work of art
© 2011
poem by Kristina Louisa Carr
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Son Of The Soil
Black, strong tatooed by the sun.
He toils and never tires.
He is the son of the soil.
Forget all these fake wana be's! You see today
wanting to be everything they see on tv.
he is the Son of the soil, raised up in the language of the ancetrals.
Taught to hunter and respect the traditions.
Raised up in the secret sacred things of the land.
Spilt his blood in the soil at the riverside at the age of 13.
He knew where his destiny lay at the age of 16.
Had his first encounter at 18.
She was a true daughter of the soil breed well by the women of the land.
Son of the soil taught by the elders the ways of women.
Son of the soil, taught by nature the way to survive.
Son of the soil, taught to endure by the woman he shares his purity with.
Son of the soil,
arise and toil for your destiny calls.
Toil to protect the weak,
to safeguard the rites,
to up root all menace and vallians from the west.
Son of the soil its your time to stand and be heard.
poem by Tigana Chileshe
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Grey is the color of cloudy skies
and they can turn black, angry,
white the color round my eyes
and red after a sangri,
but though some rinse like heaven to blue
and purple on occasions,
I'm earthbound, brown, rich soil, a hue
most lustful in persuasions.
Yet grey, red, black, brown, purple, blue
all crown a head with features
like cheeks that blanche when love's not true
or blush at lustful creatures
who like a snake with tasty fruit
ensnare the dormouse lingering
within it's cosy cave tree root
aroused by brilliant fingering!
8.18.08
Reply to GWH's
Do Gray Women Blush?
poem by Linda Hepner
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I Know It's Over
I can feel the soil falling over my head
And as i climb into an empty bed
Oh well. enough said.
I know it's over - still i cling
I don't know where else i can go
Over ...
Oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head
See, the sea wants to take me
The knife wants to cut me
Do you think you can help me ?
Sad veiled bride, please be happy
Handsome groom, give her room
Loud, loutish lover, treat her kindly
(though she needs you
More than she loves you)
And i know it's over - still i cling
I don't know where else i can go
Over, it's over, it's over, it's over
It's over, la ...
I know it's over
And it never really began
But in my heart it was so real
And you even spoke to me, and said :
"if you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
I know ...
'cause tonight - it's just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
Your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms..."
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind
Over, over
Love is natural and real
But not for you, my love
Not tonight, my love
Love is natural and real
But not for such as you and i, my love
Oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head, oh ...
Oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh mother, i can feel the soil fall over my head
Mother, i can feel the soil fall over my head
Oh mother, i can feel the soil fall over, fall over my head
Oh mother, i can feel the ... fall over my ...
Oh ...
song performed by by Smiths
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nearly Ripe
Nearly ripe, these green apples
hang heavy
from our bursting tree,
the warm evening sun
glinting through swaying branches.
They will be ready
in about a week.
Then I’ll slice them into sweet crescents
And their taste will dance upon your tongue
with all the secrets our tree has been keeping,
its living leaves,
its smooth, grey bark,
its very roots
grasping deep
into our dark soil,
and these glowing, green apples
I will make bare and white and moist,
a love offering like perfect wine for you,
and your taste will delight
in the sweet, green love
of the earth.
poem by Steven Federle
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Earth's Answer
Earth raised up her head
From the darkness dread and drear,
Her light fled,
Stony, dread,
And her locks covered with grey despair.
‘Prisoned on watery shore,
Starry jealousy does keep my den
Cold and hoar;
Weeping o’er,
I hear the father of the ancient men.
‘Selfish father of men!
Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!
Can delight,
Chained in night,
The virgins of youth and morning bear.
‘Does spring hide its joy,
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower
Sow by night,
Or the ploughman in darkness plough?
‘Break this heavy chain,
That does freeze my bones around!
Selfish, vain,
Eternal bane,
That free love with bondage bound.’
poem by William Blake from Songs of Experience (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Fairy Light
A light appeared on the darkest hill,
The girl fell once, and was left behind,
I caught her arm and we crossed the rill:
‘I can’t go on - I think I’m blind.’
‘We’ve all been blind to the things that count
But there’s the light - if you’ll follow me
We may be able to sight the truth,
And catch a glimpse of eternity.’
The light had pranced by the farmer's gate,
Followed the stony lane along,
Leapt a thicket of tangled thorns,
Flashed and fluttered, and bounded on.
‘It’s only a lonely firefly,
A torch, or maybe a will-o-wisp, ’
She clutched her leg and she gave a cry,
I left her there in the morning mist.
‘I must go on! ’ I could hear the words
The wind had snatched at my shallow breath,
‘To stay is worse than to venture on,
For standing still is a living death.’
I took the hill like a man possessed
And clawed a way through the cloying weed,
Prayed and whispered and fought for breath
To follow the light of my driving need.
The light had stopped at the stony crest
To turn its wavering glow on me,
I caught it fast in my fevered hand
And felt the light spread instantly.
The hill erupted in seas and stars,
The heavens wheeled and whirled above,
I ceased to be; but whispered ‘Why? ’
A word, in answer, whispered – ‘Love! ’
But love like this was not content,
Rather a pit of burning pain,
Only a well of innocence
Could blend unhurt in the light’s refrain.
Reflecting the inner glow of love
The great creation wheeled in grace
While I stood dark and shadow-formed,
Apart - as one of the human race!
They found me there at the break of day;
The girl had only a line to tell:
‘He must have suffered a stroke’, she said,
‘His face was pale, and then he fell.’
She didn’t mention the fairy light
We’d chased forever across the land;
The girl was lucky - I lost my sight,
And walk the world with a withered hand!
3 February 1979
poem by David Lewis Paget
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Before We Were Married
BLACKSOIL PLAINS were grey soil, grey soil in the drought.
Fifteen years away, and five hundred miles out;
Swag and bag and billy carried all our care
Before we were married, and I wish that I were there.
River banks were grassy—grassy in the bends,
Running through the land where mateship never ends;
We belled the lazy fishing lines and droned the time away
Before we were married, and I wish it were to-day.
Working down the telegraph—winters’ gales and rains
Cross the tumbled scenery of Marlborough “plains”,
Beach and bluff and cook’s tent—and the cook was a “cow”
Before we were married, but I wish that it was now.
The rolling road to Melbourne, and grey-eyed girl in fur—
One arm to a stanchion—and one round her;
Seat abaft the skylight when the moon had set—
Before she was married, and I wish it wasn’t yet.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Rainbow
I live at one of those Grey Clouds
Not really know that I am lifeless
I heard people talking about rainbow,
They’d met each other, always in a happy occasion
I wish I met the rainbow myself
Then perhaps I would know,
What the people say is not true
That there is no thing such rainbow,
That could make people’s eyes glittering
In Blue color of the sky
In Green color of the valley
In Red color of the blood
In Yellow color of the sun
I am belongs to the Grey Clouds
I Love Grey, as it is all the color I have in life
Then one day, at the ticking time of my ordinary Grey-day
I see something really bright,
With the scent of a precious flower I’d lost in the mist
For a moment I’m overwhelmed
Then I took a step further…
Away from something so beautiful, that wasn’t Grey
But the figure reveal and I stranded there
I Never learn that there are many color one’s could posses
Day goes by,
The Grey Cloud is the latest place I’d like to be
It was the rainbow…
Holding me and warm me
With a lot of bunch of dream in my empty mind
Dream I never knew
Dream I never dare to explore
The forbidden dream for my Grey outfit
I’m content with joys,
The first time I ever feel grand to face my life
My heart reflecting the color of rainbow
Blue for the peace soul
Green for the new beginning
Red for the faith
Yellow for a bright hope
Not very long
The thunder strikes,
The lightning burned my rainbow
All was Grey again
The rainbow gone away
Prefer to have a quite-smooth journey with all its color
While the thunder sent me here
Back to the Grey Clouds
poem by Niken Kusuma Wardani
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Grey Wolves Grey
The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
And they march to-night and they march to-day
Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.
Nor song nor sound their track reveals,
Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;
But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun
On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;
And they strain by night and they drag by day
To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.
As the horses toil at the ends of trains,
And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.
And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,
And he rolls the logs a bed to lay
For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,
But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.
He is marching on with a purpose grand,
For brother Slav in another land;
Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—
But he knows the cry from the far-away,
And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.
And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,
While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—
With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,
And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—
She shields her cubs by night and day
Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.
And I march with Ivan where’er he be,
With the foreign blood that is strong in me,
And the love and the hate that is fantasy,
Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.
With the blood that is strange to us to-day
As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
Grey wolves,
Grey wolves—
The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Where does the Winter go?
There goes the Winter, sulkily slinking
Somewhere behind the trees on the hill.
He caught a vision of sweet Spring prinking
In green before her mirror---the rill.
And he turned away
With his face quite grey,
And he went without ever a glance behind him
But I want to know
Which way does he go,
And does anyone ever try to find him?
Is he caught to the sky in a burst of thunder
And tucked away in the clouds to sleep?
Or does he go down to the sea, I wonder,
And fling himself out where the waves roll deep?
Is he washed ashore
After tossings sore,
And found by some fisherman, pale and dying?
On some lonely beach
Beyond human reach
Still and stark is poor Winter lying?
Or climbs he up, with his grey head drooping,
Yon purple mountain that hides the sun,
And stooping and rising, rising and stooping,
Digs a grave where never was one?
And then lies down
In his grey, pale gown
A prayer on his lips, and his hands together?
"What tears will they shed
Because I am dead?
They will dance on my grave all the bright Spring weather."
Oh! Winter, Winter, my tears are falling,
Are you glad of the tears of a little child?
Though Spring is abroad and calling, calling,
I cling to the edge of your cloak so wild.
And I kiss your hand
And I understand,
And I smooth your proor grey head, low-lying,
Ah! I cannot sing
Just yet with the Spring
While Winter, Winter, is pale and dying.
poem by Ethel Turner
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Pity for a crop...
In the lush green wheat fields
the beauty remains hidden until its ripe
From green to gold, erect to oldm cut to sold and head to told;
I'd be the last caliph of this smallest large field
water be the food for your beauty be seen
and soil be the shoes to your feet
you know; when beauty is at its peak
it's harvested, to be made someone else's beauty
and that beauty becomes someone else's charm
and charm in sight leads to the achievement
and achievement is the price that shuns the beauty
and dying beauty is like sinking sun, lamenting light, agonized ailment, distant distance and soul-less smile...
I always feared to scrutinize what i am doing now...
I'm stuck between letting you die of age or making a good harvest! ! !
13-08-2009
poem by Usman Hanif
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