The Solitary Woodsman
When the grey lake-water rushes
Past the dripping alder-bushes,
And the bodeful autumn wind
In the fir-tree weeps and hushes, --
When the air is sharply damp
Round the solitary camp,
And the moose-bush in the thicket
Glimmers like a scarlet lamp, --
When the birches twinkle yellow,
And the cornel bunches mellow,
And the owl across the twilight
Trumpets to his downy fellow, --
When the nut-fed chipmunks romp
Through the maples' crimson pomp,
And the slim viburnum flushes
In the darkness of the swamp, --
When the blueberries are dead,
When the rowan clusters red,
And the shy bear, summer-sleekened,
In the bracken makes his bed, --
On a day there comes once more
To the latched and lonely door,
Down the wood-road striding silent,
One who has been here before.
Green spruce branches for his head,
Here he makes his simple bed,
Crouching with the sun, and rising
When the dawn is frosty red.
All day long he wanders wide
With the grey moss for his guide,
And his lonely axe-stroke startles
The expectant forest-side.
Toward the quiet close of day
Back to camp he takes his way,
And about his sober footsteps
Unafraid the squirrels play.
On his roof the red leaf falls,
At his door the bluejay calls,
And he hears the wood-mice hurry
Up and down his rough log walls;
Hears the laughter of the loon
Thrill the dying afternoon;
Hears the calling of the moose
Echo to the early moon.
And he hears the partridge drumming,
The belated hornet humming, --
All the faint, prophetic sounds
That foretell the winter's coming.
And the wind about his eaves
Through the chilly night-wet grieves,
And the earth's dumb patience fills him,
Fellow to the falling leaves.
poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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Related quotes
Autumn (Tree)
The last leaf of summer falls
A tear of summer past.
Winter is coming, darkness calls.
Getting earlier, night arrives fast.
Insects no longer fly,
As frost starts to lie.
Coating the ground in blankets of white,
All bare the tree stands still in fright.
Through empty branches, the wind blasts,
The wood remembers summer last.
When all was green and not yellow,
When summer’s breeze kiss was mellow.
Only a few months, the tree must hold
For spring will make it bold.
With new leaves growing, new to old,
Summer arrives, arms to unfold.
poem by Ben Littlechild
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New For Old
Bud blisters into life
Stretching for the light
Unfolding radiant green
Upturned palm to the sun
Life seeping in, breathing out
Green, Green so Green
Resurrected hope, so Green
Summer breeze stroking
Branches ebb and flow
Leaves so Green strong now
Fear not wind of change
Mellow summer turns
Green, green, green-yellow
Yellow area of dieing heart
Green lingers no more
Limp transparent yellow
Barely a breeze takes one
Fierce Hyde-like wind now
Cracking and ripping
Wind torn leaves fall
Life chords snapped
Death too early, still Green
Nourishment broken not ended
Seasons build up to tear down
To build up, to tear down
Leaves fall, Green leaves fall
And then some more
Until leaves are falling, falling
Trees and branches revealed
In the x-ray of autumn blast
Winter is coming
Winter is coming
Yellow pale yellow carpet
Beneath the naked tree
Yellow, mulchy brown
Once crisp leaves scatter
Green, yellow, transparent veins
Tired, half dead, leaves lose their grip
Join the autumn rain soaked mound
Providing new life to the roots
Old for new, New for Old
Seeds buried in death
Bring new life in Spring
In the end is the beginning.
poem by Adrian Wait
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Modern Day Agnostic
he hears the church bell
ring
early this morning
he hears the footsteps
passing
by his door
going
on a worship
towards
the holy door
he keeps himself
mum
unmoved by any
invitation
he is thinking
will the door still open for him?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Old Whim Horse
He's an old grey horse, with his head bowed sadly,
And with dim old eyes and a queer roll aft,
With the off-fore sprung and the hind screwed badly,
And he bears all over the brands of graft;
And he lifts his head from the grass to wonder
Why by night and day the whim is still,
Why the silence is, and the stampers' thunder
Sounds forth no more from the shattered mill.
In that whim he worked when the night winds bellowed
On the riven summit of Giant's Hand,
And by day when prodigal Spring had yellowed
All the wide, long sweep of enchanted land;
And he knew his shift, and the whistle's warning,
And he knew the calls of the boys below;
Through the years, unbidden, at night or morning,
He had taken his stand by the old whim bow.
But the whim stands still, and the wheeling swallow
In the silent shaft hangs her home of clay,
And the lizards flirt and the swift snakes follow
O'er the grass-grown brace in the summer day;
And the corn springs high in the cracks and corners
Of the forge, and down where the timber lies;
And the crows are perched like a band of mourners
On the broken hut on the Hermit's Rise.
All the hands have gone, for the rich reef paid out,
And the company waits till the calls come in;
But the old grey horse, like the claim, is played out,
And no market's near for his bones and skin.
So they let him live, and they left him grazing
By the creek, and oft in the evening dim
I have seen him stand on the rises, gazing
At the ruined brace and the rotting whim.
The floods rush high in the gully under,
And the lightnings lash at the shrinking trees,
Or the cattle down from the ranges blunder
As the fires drive by on the summer breeze.
Still the feeble horse at the right hour wanders
To the lonely ring, though the whistle's dumb,
And with hanging head by the bow he ponders
Where the whim boy's gone -- why the shifts don't come.
But there comes a night when he sees lights glowing
In the roofless huts and the ravaged mill,
When he hears again all the stampers going --
Though the huts are dark and the stampers still:
When he sees the steam to the black roof clinging
As its shadows roll on the silver sands,
And he knows the voice of his driver singing,
And the knocker's clang where the braceman stands.
See the old horse take, like a creature dreaming,
On the ring once more his accustomed place;
But the moonbeams full on the ruins streaming
Show the scattered timbers and grass-grown brace.
Yet HE hears the sled in the smithy falling,
And the empty truck as it rattles back,
And the boy who stands by the anvil, calling;
And he turns and backs, and he "takes up slack".
While the old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver
As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,
And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver
In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;
And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,
Hears again the voice that was dear to him,
Sees the form he knew -- and his heart grows bolder
As he works his shift by the broken whim.
He hears in the sluices the water rushing
As the buckets drain and the doors fall back;
When the early dawn in the east is blushing,
He is limping still round the old, old track.
Now he pricks his ears, with a neigh replying
To a call unspoken, with eyes aglow,
And he sways and sinks in the circle, dying;
From the ring no more will the grey horse go.
In a gully green, where a dam lies gleaming,
And the bush creeps back on a worked-out claim,
And the sleepy crows in the sun sit dreaming
On the timbers grey and a charred hut frame,
Where the legs slant down, and the hare is squatting
In the high rank grass by the dried-up course,
Nigh a shattered drum and a king-post rotting
Are the bleaching bones of the old grey horse.
poem by Edward George Dyson
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The Call
Gold and green the elm leaves lean and interlace,
All the coloured woodlands are calling to the Chase.
Dew is on the stubble field, ruddy grows the thorn,
All the withered meadowland is listening for the horn.
Lures of lawn and hammock, rod and bat and ball,
Fade before the coming of a stronger lure than all,
Faint before the whisper of the padding feet that pass,
Fail before the witchery of hoof-beats on the grass.
England in her summer sleep turns about and stirs,
Hears the click of bridle rings, hears the clink of spurs,
Sees the gleam of spotted flanks moving in the gorse,
Sees the flashing scarlet of a Whip upon his horse.
Rippling water charms no more, nor the lazy noon,
Spent among the lime trees where a wild bee makes the tune;
Something fiercer tugs the heart, fans the Wood to fire,
Sets the pulses galloping, and wakes the old desire.
Girths are buckled, reins are drawn, stirrups caught again;
Women turn to sterner play, men go forth like men.
Where the storm-clouds gather, where the strong winds stride,
Autumn calls to England and bids her bravest ride.
poem by William Henry Ogilvie
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The Leaf And The Tree
When will you learn, myself, to be
a dying leaf on a living tree?
Budding, swelling, growing strong,
Wearing green, but not for long,
Drawing sustenance from air,
That other leaves, and you not there,
May bud, and at the autumn's call
Wearing russet, ready to fall?
Has not this trunk a deed to do
Unguessed by small and tremulous you?
Shall not these branches in the end
To wisdom and the truth ascend?
And the great lightning plunging by
Look sidewise with a golden eye
To glimpse a tree so tall and proud
It sheds its leaves upon a cloud?
Here, I think, is the heart's grief:
The tree, no mightier than the leaf,
Makes firm its root and spreads it crown
And stands; but in the end comes down.
That airy top no boy could climb
Is trodden in a little time
By cattle on their way to drink.
The fluttering thoughts a leaf can think,
That hears the wind and waits its turn,
Have taught it all a tree can learn.
Time can make soft that iron wood.
The tallest trunk that ever stood,
In time, without a dream to keep,
Crawls in beside the root to sleep.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Winter Comes A'Calling
Oh, Winter comes a'calling
To dampen life's warming days
Spreading across the meadow
Where the last leaf of autumn lays
How sadly does the dying leaf
Flutter ~ to the frosty ground
Its glow a fading ember
Falling softly ~ without a sound
No more to see the sunrise
Above the forest ~ deeply green
Nor to treasure the glowing twilight
As it passes now ~ unseen
Oh, yes ~ Old Winter's a'calling
Where the barren trees now stand
Spreading ~ a darkened silence
With the touch of its chilly hand
The Winter brings the ending
Of our summer and autumn days
Their warm memories ~ are now buried
Where the last leaf of autumn lays......
poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
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Counterpoint: Two Rooms
He, in the room above, grown old and tired;
She, in the room below, his floor her ceiling,
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter.
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night.
His watch—the same he has heard these cycles of ages—
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clock upon her mantelpiece strikes nine.
The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.
The world whirs on. New stars come up to shine.
His youth—far off—he sees it brightly walking
In a golden cloud .... wings flashing about it....
Darkness
Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.
Old age, far off—or death—what do they matter?
Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.
She hears slow steps in the street; they chime like music,
They climb to her heart, they break and flower in beauty,
Along her veins they glisten and ring and burn.
He hears his own slow steps tread down to silence.
Far off they pass. He knows they will never return.
Far off, on a smooth dark road, he hears them faintly.
The road, like a sombre river, quietly flowing,
Moves among murmurous walls. A deeper breath
Swells them to sound: he hears his steps more clearly.
And death seems nearer to him; or he to death.
What's death?—she smiles. The cool stone hurts her elbow,
The last few raindrops gather and fall from elm-boughs,
She sees them glisten and break. The arc-lamp sings,
The new leaves dip in the warm wet air and fragrance,
A sparrbw whirs to the eaves and shakes its wings.
What's death—what's death ? The spring returns like music ;
The trees are like dark lovers who dream in starlight;
The soft grey clouds go over the stars like dreams.
The cool stone wounds her arms to pain, to pleasure.
Under the lamp a circle of wet street gleams.
And death seems far away—a thing of roses,
A golden portal where golden music closes,
Death seems far away;
And spring returns, the countless singing of lovers,
And spring returns to stay....
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
Flings himself on the bed, face down, in laughter,
And clenches his hands, and remembers, and desires to die.
And she, by the window, smiles at a night of starlight....
The soft grey clouds go slowly across the sky.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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Enigmatically Truthful
Day begins with night; Yet shadows do not stay;
With the breaking of dawn, darkness flees away.
We observe as the wind twists limbs of a tree;
Yet enigmatically the wind itself we can't see.
Snow falls; melts into the river; flows to the sea;
Heat pulls it back into the air; again snow it'll be.
Water runs downhill and will at its course stay;
Carving through stone; mountains eating away.
Animals hop and leap the moment life's begun,
Yet a human takes some years to walk and run.
Truly into a forest you can walk only half way;
For then you will be walking out or there stay.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around,
Although no one hears it, it still makes a sound,
In reality a bell is an ornament until it is rung,
Of a truth a song is just words until it is sung,
A word is thought until it is penned or spoken;
For up until then it is only an unformed token.
GOD does not permit love in your heart to stay,
Knowing that love cannot be until given away!
poem by Joseph Blitch
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room below—his floor her ceiling—
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,
His watch—the same he has heard these cycles of ages—
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clock, upon her mantelpiece, strikes nine.
The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.
The world whirs on. . . .New stars come up to shine.
His youth—far off—he sees it brightly walking
In a golden cloud. . . .Wings flashing about it. . . . Darkness
Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.
Old age—far off—her death—what do they matter?
Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.
She hears slow steps in the street—they chime like music;
They climb to her heart, they break and flower in beauty,
Along her veins they glisten and ring and burn. . . .
He hears his own slow steps tread down to silence.
Far off they pass. He knows they will never return.
Far off—on a smooth dark road—he hears them faintly.
The road, like a sombre river, quietly flowing,
Moves among murmurous walls. A deeper breath
Swells them to sound: he hears his steps more clearly.
And death seems nearer to him: or he to death.
What's death?—She smiles. The cool stone hurts her elbows.
The last of the rain-drops gather and fall from elm-boughs,
She sees them glisten and break. The arc-lamp sings,
The new leaves dip in the warm wet air and fragrance.
A sparrow whirs to the eaves, and shakes his wings.
What's death—what's death? The spring returns like music,
The trees are like dark lovers who dream in starlight,
The soft grey clouds go over the stars like dreams.
The cool stone wounds her arms to pain, to pleasure.
Under the lamp a circle of wet street gleams. . . .
And death seems far away, a thing of roses,
A golden portal, where golden music closes,
Death seems far away:
And spring returns, the countless singing of lovers,
And spring returns to stay. . . .
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
Flings himself on the bed, face down, in laughter,
And clenches his hands, and remembers, and desires to die.
And she, by the window, smiles at a night of starlight.
. . . The soft grey clouds go slowly across the sky.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Spasskoe
In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn’t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy’s shout.
Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can’t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.
The wood’s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear’s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.
Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you’re, fifteen – it’s still complaining –
again – ‘oh child, oh, what shall we do with them?’
They’re already so many it’s time to stop playing.
They’re – birds in the bushes, mushrooms in the trees.
Already we’ve veiled our horizon with them, shrouding
each other’s landscape with fog-bound mysteries.
The comic, on the night of his death, typhus-stricken,
hears a peal: it’s Homeric laughter from the box.
Today in Spasskoe, the same grief, in hallucination,
stares, from the road, at a house of weathered logs.
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Eight Years Old
SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.
II.
What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.
III.
Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,
Whose molten music thaws his ears
Late frozen, deaf but yesterday
To sounds of dying and dawning years,
Now quickened on his deathward way.
IV.
For deathward now lies winter’s way
Down the green vestibule of years
That each year brightens day by day
With flower and shower till hope scarce fears
And fear grows wholly hope of May.
But we—the music in our ears
Made of love’s pulses as they play
The heart alone that makes it hears.
V.
The heart it is that plays and hears
High salutation of to-day.
Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears
Its own unworthiness to play
Fit music for those eight sweet years,
Or sing their blithe accomplished way.
No song quite worth a young child’s ears
Broke ever even from birds in May.
VI.
There beats not in the heart of May,
When summer hopes and springtide fears,
There falls not from the height of day,
When sunlight speaks and silence hears,
So sweet a psalm as children play
And sing, each hour of all their years,
Each moment of their lovely way,
And know not how it thrills our ears.
VII.
Ah child, what are we, that our ears
Should hear you singing on your way,
Should have this happiness? The years
Whose hurrying wings about us play
Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears
Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,
Being sinless as the spring, that hears
Her own heart praise her every day.
VIII.
Yet we too triumph in the day
That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,
To lighten daylight, and to play
Such notes as darkness knows and fears,
The child whose face illumes our way,
Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,
Whose hand is as the hand of May
To bring us flowers from eight full years.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Walk With the Wind 6
31
the wind goes around
circling the trees and bushes
this October noon
32
drooping leaves yellow
on to the ground of the night
winter slowly walks
33
as the wind blows
with its many hollow voices
- night goes to star fall
34
momentarily breeze
over my roof and windows
singing for winter
35
no longer living
the bouquets of yesterday
- dried for ornament
36
inside the forest
the silent goes lonely by
- single ruffling leaf
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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A Japanese Wood-Carving
High up above the open, welcoming door
It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,
The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
Summer had run like fire through its veins,
While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,
And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among
Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;
But every now and then broad sunlit days
Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.
Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us
It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;
But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!
An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back
By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue
And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
Among the flashing waves are two white birds
Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy
At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,
Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up,
Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,
While the wet drops like little glints of light,
Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,
Or skimming some white crest about to break,
The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop
And play with ocean in a summer mood.
Hanging above the high, wide open door,
It brings to us in quiet, firelit room,
The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,
Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,
And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.
poem by Amy Lowell
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Morse Moose & The Grey Goose
Right on down at the bottom of the sea
Tell me are you receiving me?
My name is morse moose and Im calling you
The grey goose was a steady boat
People said shes never float
One night when the moon was high
The grey goose flew away
As we were sailing round the rocks
The mate took out his compass box
And said the wind is like a fox
But the grey goose flew away
When out upon the open sea
The admiral, the mate and me
Prepared to face eternity
But the grey goose flew away
She flew into the stormy sea
Davy jones was calling me
But heading for tranquility
The grey goose flew away
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An Indian Story
"I know where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
From the eye of the hunter well.
"I know where the young May violet grows,
In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark bough, in solemn repose,
Far over the silent brook.
"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
To look on the lovely flower."
Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,
And voice like the music of rills.
He goes to the chase- but evil eyes
Are at watch in the thicker shades;
For she was lovely that smiled oh his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
The flower of the forest maids.
The boughs in the morning wind are stirred,
And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard
Where the hazels trickle with dew.
And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,
Ere eve shall redden the sky,
A good red deer from the forest shade,
That bounds with the herd through grove and glade,
At her cabin-door shall lie.
The hollow woods, in the setting sun,
Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;
And Maquon's sylvan labors are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
He bears on his homeward way.
He stops near his bower- his eye perceives
Strange traces along the ground—
At once to the earth his burden he heaves;
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves;
And gains its door with a bound.
But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
And all from the young shrubs there
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent,
One tress of the well-known hair.
But where is she who, at this calm hour,
Ever watched his coming to see?
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower;
He calls—but he only hears on the flower
The hum of the laden bee.
It is not a time for idle grief,
Nor a time for tears to flow;
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief—
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf
Of darts made sharp for the foe.
And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet
Where he bore the maiden away;
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast hurries the vapor and sleet
O'er the wild November day.
'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride
Was stolen away from his door;
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin-side—
And she smiles at his hearth once more.
But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold,
Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
In the deepest gloom of the spot.
And the Indian girls, that pass that way,
Point out the ravisher's grave;
"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Returned the maid that was borne away
From Maquon, the fond and the brave."
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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0145 Chinese Landscape
The old pine tree
leans out from the rocks
over the still lake
with respect
though no-one guesses this
once a month
the pine tree is silhouetted
against the rising moon
though no-one knows this
its roots drink gratefully
from the generous water
though no-one sees this
its branches murmur to
the lapping lake-water as old friends
though no-one hears this
except you and I and the artist -
nature
poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Seasons
I
As if summer will never end
irises are everywhere in the garden
with opening flower after flower
in light yellow, deep purple and rust-brown.
The bright hot sun hangs day after day
in a cobalt blue sky and even carnations, geraniums
and flame lilies are showing their beauty,
are still holding onto summer.
Doves are still cooing in the oak tree,
their are finches and sparrows cavorting up and down
and it’s as if nature is thwarting autumn
while dew is still shining on the leaves in the mornings
until later the sky becomes dull blue
while the sun is getting much more faint.
II
Slowly the leaves are falling
descending in different colours,
in one’s and two’s and later in a bigger number
tree-trunks become dark brown, red and some pallid
until every tree but for those that are evergreen stand skeleton,
the birds that remain sit next to each other shivering,
wishing for the winter to past
having difficulty to find seeds and other food
and the cold winter wind blows through everything,
filling the air with whirling dust clouds
with stripped branches flinging up and down
and everywhere leaves and branches lie in a jumble
until the wind dies down and the morning fog hangs like vapour,
at times only at noon is dispersed by the sun.
III
Days are cold and grey while the sun hides,
with a owl hunting during the day
searching for hungry mice sneaking around in the yellow grass
and all other signs of animal life is missing
but for doves sitting here and there
on telephone wires,
in disconsolation staring into the distance
and early mornings the grass is covered with white ripe
and it is as if every flower succumbs,
is shrinking crumpled and are folding close
until the first spring rain comes suddenly,
with sprouts and buds appearing and new flowers folding open
when fruit trees are covered with white, pink and yellow blossoms
and the sudden beauty takes your breath away.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Swamp Fox
WE follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
His friends and merry men are we;
And when the troop of Tarleton rides,
We burrow in the cypress tree.
The turfy hammock is our bed,
Our home is in the red deer's den,
Our roof, the tree-top overhead,
For we are wild and hunted men.
We fly by day and shun its light,
But prompt to strike the sudden blow,
We mount and start with early night,
And through the forest track our foe,
And soon he hears our chargers leap,
The flashing saber blinds his eyes,
And ere he drives away his sleep,
And rushes from his camp, he dies.
Free bridle-bit, good gallant steed,
That will not ask a kind caress
To swim the Santee at our need,
When on his heels the foemen press -
The true heart and the ready hand,
The spirit stubborn to be free,
The twisted bore, the smiting brand -
And we are Marion's men, you see.
Now light the fire and cook the meal,
The last, perhaps, that we shall taste;
I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal,
And that's a sign we move in haste.
He whistles to the scouts, and hark!
You hear his order calm and low.
Come, wave your torch across the dark,
And let us see the boys that go.
We may not see their forms again,
God help 'em, should they find the strife!
For they are strong and fearless men,
And make no coward terms for life;
They'll fight as long as Marion bids,
And when he speaks the word to shy,
Then, not till then, they turn their steeds,
Through thickening shade and swamp to fly.
Now stir the fire and lie at ease -
The scouts are gone, and on the brush
I see the Colonel bend his knees,
To take his slumbers too. But hush!
He's praying, comrades; 't is not strange;
The man that's fighting day by day
May well, when night comes, take a change,
And down upon his knees to pray.
Break up that hoecake, boys, and hand
The sly and silent jug that 's there;
I love not it should idly stand
When Marion's men have need of cheer.
'T is seldom that our luck affords
A stuff like this we just have quaffed,
And dry potatoes on our boards
May always call for such a draught.
Now pile the brush and roll the log;
Hard pillow, but a soldier's head
That's half the time in brake and bog
Must never think of softer bed.
The owl is hooting to the night,
The cooter crawling o'er the bank,
And in that pond the flashing light
Tells where the alligator sank.
What! 't is the signal! start so soon,
And through the Santee swamp so deep,
Without the aid of friendly moon,
And we, Heaven help us! half asleep!
But courage, comrades! Marion leads;
The Swamp Fox takes us out to-night;
So clear your swords and spur your steeds,
There's goodly chance, I think, of fight.
We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
We leave the swamp and cypress tree,
Our spurs are in our coursers' sides,
And ready for the strife are we.
The Tory camp is now in sight,
And there he cowers within his den;
He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight,
He fears, and flies from Marion's men.
poem by William Gilmore Simms
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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