Alumni Hall
surrounded by old wood
you breathe wood
and you feel the wood
breathing you too
all around you
in deep sleep
the past comes still dreaming of you
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Through The Wood
THROUGH the wood, the green wood, the wet wood, the light wood,
Love and I went maying a thousand lives ago;
Shafts of golden sunlight had made a golden bright wood
In my heart reflected, because I loved you so.
Through the wood, the chill wood, the brown wood, the bare wood,
I alone went lonely no later than last year,
What had thinned the branches, and wrecked my dear and fair wood,
Killed the pale wild roses and left the rose-thorns sere?
Through the wood, the dead wood, the sad wood, the lone wood,
Winds of winter shiver through lichens old and grey,
You ride past forgetting the wood that was our own wood
All our own--and withered as ever a flower of May.
poem by Edith Nesbit

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Sea-Saw (more writing fun)
If I saw a wood boat afloat
Upon the sea,
Would what I see possibly be
The wood I cut from a tree?
For when I saw a tree
I would like to think I see,
What the wood I saw
Could be.
If all I saw in wood from a tree
Was all I saw that there was to see,
Would what I did saw
Be the wood that I now see?
And if the wood I once did saw
Was indeed made into that ship on the sea,
Would it even be possible to know that here what I see
Is the wood once sawed by me?
All I here would dare to share is:
I see what I saw, and I saw what I see,
And therefore the wood I do saw could one day be
The boat I may see, afloat upon the sea.
See?
poem by Smoky Hoss

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The House In The Woods
At the back of the houses there is the wood.
While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood
Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song,
Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good
Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House
In the Wood. It is a part of life, or of the story
We make of life. But after the last leaf,
The last light--for each year is leafless,
Each day lightless, at the last--the wood begins
Its serious existence: it has no path,
No house, no story; it resists comparison...
One clear, repeated, lapping gurgle, like a spoon
Or a glass breathing, is the brook,
The wood's fouled midnight water. If I walk into the wood
As far as I can walk, I come to my own door,
The door of the House in the Wood. It opens silently:
On the bed is something covered, something humped
Asleep there, awake there--but what? I do not know.
I look, I lie there, and yet I do not know.
How far out my great echoing clumsy limbs
Stretch, surrounded only by space! For time has struck,
All the clocks are stuck now, for how many lives,
On the same second. Numbed, wooden, motionless,
We are far under the surface of the night.
Nothing comes down so deep but sound: a car, freight cars,
A high soft droning, drawn out like a wire
Forever and ever--is this the sound that Bunyan heard
So that he thought his bowels would burst within him?--
Drift on, on, into nothing. Then someone screams
A scream like an old knife sharpened into nothing.
It is only a nightmare. No one wakes up, nothing happens,
Except there is gooseflesh over my whole body--
And that too, after a little while, is gone.
I lie here like a cut-off limb, the stump the limb has left...
Here at the bottom of the world, what was before the world
And will be after, holds me to its back
Breasts and rocks me: the oven is cold, the cage is empty,
In the House in the Wood, the witch and her child sleep.
poem by Randall Jarrell

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The Wood By The Sea
I DWELL in the wood that is dark and kind
But afar off tolls the main,
Afar, far off I hear the wind,
And the roving of the rain.
The shade is dark as a palmer's hood,
The air with balm is bland:
But I wish the trees that breathe in the wood
Were ashes in God's hand.
The pines are weary of holding nests,
Are aweary of casting shade;
Wearily smoulder the resin crests
In the pungent gloom of the glade.
Weary are all the birds of sleep,
The nests are weary of wings,
The whole wood yearns to the swaying deep,
The mother of restful things.
The wood is very old and still,
So still when the dead cones fall,
Near in the vale or away on the hill,
You can hear them one and all.
And their falling wearies me;
If mine were the will of God,–oh, then
The wood should tramp to the sounding sea,
Like a marching army of men!
But I dwell in the wood that is dark and kind,
Afar off tolls the main;
Afar, far off I hear the wind
And the roving of the rain.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

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Knock On Wood
I dont want to lose the good thing that Ive got
If I do, I will surely, I will lose a lot
For your love is better than any love other Ive know
Its like thunder, lightning
The way you love me is frightening
I better knock on wood
Baby
I got superstitious about you, but I cant take change
You got me spinning, baby, spinning in a trance
But your love is better than any other love Ive known
Its like thunder, lightning
The way you love me is frightening
You better knock on wood
Its no secret, but that woman fills my lovin cup
She sees, so ready, that I get enough
And her love is better than any other love Ive known
Its like thunder
Its like lightning
The way you love me is frightening
I better knock on wood
Baby
Better, yes, better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) yes, I better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) oh, knock on wood
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) you know I would, would
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) its no secret
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) no, oh, better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) hangin above me
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) I cant leave her
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) oh no, baby
Knock on wood, woo!
song performed by by David Bowie

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In The Shade Of The Green Wood
In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.
In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.
In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.
poem by Andrew Blakemore

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Variations on a Theme by Joyce
The war is in words and the wood is the world
That turns beneath our rootless feet;
the vines that reach, alive and snarled,
Across the path where the sand is swirled,
Twist in the night. The light lies flat.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
The rain is ruin and our ruin rides
The swiftest winds; the wood is whorled
And turned and smoothed by the turning tides.
--There is rain in the woods, slow rain that breeds
The war in the words. The wood is the world.
This rain is ruin and our ruin rides.
The war is in words and the wood is the world,
Sourceless and seized and forever filled
With green vine twisting on wood more gnarled
Than dead men's hands. The vines are curled
Around these branches, crushed and killed.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
poem by Weldon Kees

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The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play-
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood-
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For 't is Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.
Over the river, and through the wood-
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.
Over the river, and through the wood-
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurra for the pumpkin pie!
poem by Lydia Maria Francis Child

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Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.
quote by Annie Dillard

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Premature Rejoicing
What's that over there?
Thiepval Wood.
Take a steady look at it; it'll do you good.
Here, these glasses will help you. See any flowers?
There sleeps Titania (correct - the Wood is ours);
There sleeps Titania in a deep dugout,
Waking, she wonders what all the din's about,
And smiles through her tears, and looks ahead ten years,
And sees the Wood again, and her usual Grenadiers,
All in green,
Music in the moon;
The burnt rubbish you've just seen
Won't beat the Fairy Queen;
All the same, it's a shade too soon
For you to scribble rhymes
In your army book
About those times;
Take another look;
That's where the difficulty is, over there.
poem by Edmund Blunden

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Song Of A Dream
ONCE in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
poem by Sarojini Naidu

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From Citron-Bower
From citron-bower be her bed,
cut from branch of tree a-flower,
fashioned for her maidenhead.
From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,
cut the width of board and lathe,
carve the feet from myrtle-wood.
Let the palings of her bed
be quince and box-wood overlaid
with the scented bark of yew.
That all the wood in blossoming,
may calm her heart and cool her blood,
for losing of her maidenhood.
poem by Hilda Doolittle

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Choppin' Wood
(Van Morrison)
You wired the trains and went back home to St. Claire's shores
Before you became a spark down at the yard
You were passing through those hungry years alone
You were just trying to make a living out in Detroit
When you came back off the boats you didn't want to go anywhere
You sit down to TV in your favourite chair
You watch the big picture fade away down at Harland and Wolff
But you still kept on choppin' wood
And you came back home to Belfast
So you could be with us like
You lived your life of quiet desperation on the side
Going to the shipyard in the morning on your bike
Well the spark was gone but you carried on
You always did the best you could
You sent for us once but everything fell through
But you still kept on choppin' wood choppin' wood
Well you came back home to Belfast
So you could be with us like
And you lived a life of quiet desperation on the side
Going to the shipyard in the morning on your bike
WeIl the spark was gone but you carried on
Well you did just the best that you could
You sent for us one time but everything fell through
But you still kept on choppin' wood
Kept on choppin'wood
Kept on choppin' wood
Local man chops wood
You know you did the best you could
Well everything just fell through
Kept on choppin' wood
Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop,
Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop,
Chop, chop, chop, keep on choppin'
Chop, chop, chop, choppin' wood
song performed by by Van Morrison

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Sea By The Wood
I DWELL in the sea that is wild and deep,
But afar in a shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
The deeps are green as an emerald's face,
The caves are crystal calm,
But I wish the sea were a little trace
Of moisture in God's palm.
The waves are weary of hiding pearls,
Are aweary of smothering gold,
They would all be air that sweeps and swirls
In the branches manifold.
They are weary of laving the seaman's eyes
With their passion prayer unsaid,
They are weary of sobs and the sudden sighs
And movements of the dead.
All the sea is haunted with human lips
Ashen and sere and gray,
You can hear the sails of the sunken ships
Stir and shiver and sway
In the weary solitude;
If mine were the will of God, the main
Should melt away in the rustling wood
Like a mist that follows the rain.
But I dwell in the sea that is wild and deep
And afar in the shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

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On Reading a Recent Greek Poet
After the wailing had already begun
along the walls, their ruin certain,
the Trojans fidgeted with bits of wood
in the three-ply doors, itsy-bitsy
pieces of wood, fussing with them.
And began to get their nerve back and feel hopeful.
poem by Bertolt Brecht

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The Wood of Flowers
I went to the Wood of Flowers
(No one was with me):
I was there alone for hours.
I was happy as could be
In the Wood of Flowers.
There was grass on the ground,
There were buds on the tree,
And the wind had a sound
Of such gaiety,
That I was as happy
As happy could be,
In the Wood of Flowers.
poem by James Stephens

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Crosscut Saw
By r. g. ford
Im a crosscut saw,
Baby, drag me across your log.
Im a crosscut saw,
Baby, drag me across your log.
I cut your wood so easy for you,
You cant help but say, hot dog!
Some call me woodcutting sam,
Some call me woodcutting jim.
The last girl I cut wood for,
She wants me back again.
Im a crosscut saw,
Baby, drag me across your log.
I cut your wood so easy for you,
You cant help but say, hot dog!
I got a double-bladed axe
That really cuts good.
Well, Im a crosscut saw,
Gonna bury me in your wood.
Im a crosscut saw,
Baby, drag me across your log.
I cut your wood so easy for you,
You cant help but say, hot dog!
song performed by by Eric Clapton

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bluebell Wood
Children tiptoe through the bluebell wood
making no sound as they go.
It seems like only yesterday
we saw our children play
the games we used to do.
Now we smile at our grandchildren
playing hide and seek
in the same bluebell wood
where we did play.
Our hair maybe silver and white,
but we are still young at heart
and want to join them
tiptoeing through the bluebell wood.
19 March 2011
poem by David Harris

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What is it about genus arboretum that socks us in the figurative solar plexus We see a logging truck go cruising down the road, stacked with a bunch of those fresh-cut giants, we feel like we lost a brother. Next thing you know, we're in The Brick, we're flopping money down on the bar. Wood. We're under a roof. Wood. We're walking the floors. Wood. Grabbing a pool cue. That's wood. Our friends in the forest carry a set of luggage from the mythical baggage carousel. Tree of life, tree of knowledge, family tree, Buddha's Bodhi tree. Page one of life, in the beginning. Genesis 322. Adam and Eve. They're kicking back in the garden of Eden and boom, they get an eviction notice. Why is that Lest they should also take of the tree of life, eat and live forever. A definitive Yahweh no-no. Be good to yourself, go out and plant a wet one on a tree.
quote by Diane Frolov

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Strong wood is worth more than painted wood.