The Empty House
See this house, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies—
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent of heaven’s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’
‘Secrets,’ sighs the night-wind,
‘Vacancy is all I find;
Every keyhole I have made
Wails a summons, faint and sad,
No voice ever answers me,
Only vacancy.’
‘Once, once … ’ the cricket shrills,
And far and near the quiet fills
With its tiny voice, and then
Hush falls again.
Mute shadows creeping slow
Mark how the hours go.
Every stone is mouldering slow.
And the least winds that blow
Some minutest atom shake,
Some fretting ruin make
In roof and walls. How black it is
Beneath these thick boughed trees!
poem by Walter de la Mare
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Related quotes
The Watcher on the Tower
I
The Voice of a Man
WHAT of the Night, O Watcher?
The Voice of a Woman
Yea, what of it?
The Watcher
A star has risen; and a wind blows strong.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
But God is there above it.
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
II
Voice of the Man
What of the Night, O Watcher?
Voice of the Woman
Night of sorrow!
The Watcher
Out of the East there comes a sound, like song.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
Have courage! There’s To-morrow!
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
III
Voice of the Man
What of the Night, O Watcher?
Voice of the Woman
Is it other?
The Watcher
I see a gleam; a thorn of light; a thong.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
The Morning comes, my Brother.
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
IV
Voice of the Man
What now, what now, O Watcher?
The Watcher
Red as slaughter
The Darkness dies. The Light comes swift and strong.
Voice of the Man
The Night was long.—What sayest thou, my Daughter?
Voice of the Woman
The Night was dark; the Night was dark and long.
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon - Villanelle
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
From drops of peridot scattered at sea,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.
His father not caring where or with whom,
Or from what rare ocean his being might be-
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.
He learnt his letters from a dark winged loon
Who flew where the mountains caress the trees,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.
His speech was a garble of false and truth,
Whistling like a hollow piped reed,
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.
His eyes a contagion of waters blue
And brackish trunks of underwater trees
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.
His normal voice wove a threadless tune,
Brought close the mermaids, hungry to feed;
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.
poem by Patti Masterman
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Night Secrets
Night Secrets…
No more my aching heart
As you sleep silent in my breast
Awakening in the night
I await your sweet caress
My aching, barren arms in vain
So many times I've wept
At night upon my pillow
While in my bed I slept
Night secrets in the darkness
Like dark, murky shadows
That linger in the night
The rain softly whispers
Through the wind and trees
Carrying my secrets
To the moon shining bright
Secrets kept deep within my heart
They whisper in the night
No one else may listen
There's no one else in sight
They echo through the evening
Those things I cannot share
My secrets whispering in the darkness
Like a breeze fluttering through air
Until then…
I'll wait my love
For your soft, caressing touch
With the stars softly glowing
Through the window in my room
I lie quietly in my bed
With the shadows of the night
Whispers flow in the breeze
Sending them gently to the moon
Until then…
I'll wait til you come again
When I can softly whisper in your ear
Those secrets that I carry
Sharing secrets...
With the one I love so dear
Until then I'll wait...
For my heart belongs to only you
poem by ANNE P LadeeAnne MURRAY
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When the wind sighs
When the wind sighs
When the wind sighs
The blind-fold statue sings
The faces of the skies are dark
And the cloud flies.
When the wind sighs
From the door-crevice in
It begs to enter in
How darker are the shadows on the walls
How sad how sad the flame wavers
As on the wall it flickers:
When the wind sighs
The sea’s black turns to green
And on the city-bastions tall
The first chill blow of wind
The first chill dropp of rain
And in the alley strait
Rain-waters gurgle down
The old stone-cobbled streets:
When the wind sighs
When the wind sighs.
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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Under the Violets
HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;--
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.
But not beneath a graven stone,
To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone
Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.
And gray old trees of hugest limb
Shall wheel their circling shadows round
To make the scorching sunlight dim
That drinks the greenness from the ground,
And drop their dead leaves on her mound.
When o'er their boughs the squirrels run,
And through their leaves the robins call,
And, ripening in the autumn sun,
The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.
For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel-voice of Spring,
That trills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.
When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.
At last the rootlets of the trees
Shall find the prison where she lies,
And bear the buried dust they seize
In leaves and blossoms to the skies.
So may the soul that warmed it rise!
If any, born of kindlier blood,
Should ask, What maiden lies below?
Say only this: A tender bud,
That tried to blossom in the snow,
Lies withered where the violets blow.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Visitant
1
A cloud moved close. The bulk of the wind shifted.
A tree swayed over water.
A voice said:
Stay. Stay by the slip-ooze. Stay.
Dearest tree, I said, may I rest here?
A ripple made a soft reply.
I waited, alert as a dog.
The leech clinging to a stone waited;
And the crab, the quiet breather.
2
Slow, slow as a fish she came,
Slow as a fish coming forward,
Swaying in a long wave;
Her skirts not touching a leaf,
Her white arms reaching towards me.
She came without sound,
Without brushing the wet stones,
In the soft dark of early evening,
She came,
The wind in her hair,
The moon beginning.
3
I woke in the first of morning.
Staring at a tree, I felt the pulse of a stone.
Where’s she now, I kept saying.
Where’s she now, the mountain’s downy girl?
But the bright day had no answer.
A wind stirred in a web of appleworms;
The tree, the close willow, swayed.
poem by Theodore Roethke
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The Churchyard
HOW slowly creeps the hand of Time
On the old clock’s green-mantled face!
Yea, slowly as those ivies climb,
The hours roll round with patient pace;
The drowsy rooks caw on the tower,
The tame doves hover round and round;
Below, the slow grass hour by hour
Makes green God’s sleeping-ground.
All moves, but nothing here is swift;
The grass grows deep, the green boughs shoot;
From east to west the shadows drift;
The earth feels heavenward underfoot;
The slow stream through the bridge doth stray
With water-lilies on its marge,
And slowly, pil’d with scented hay,
Creeps by the silent barge.
All stirs, but nothing here is loud:
The cushat broods, the cuckoo cries;
Faint, far up, under a white cloud,
The lark trills soft to earth and skies;
And underneath the green graves rest;
And through the place, with slow footfalls,
With snowy cambric on his breast,
The old gray Vicar crawls.
And close at hand, to see him come,
Clustering at the playground gate,
The urchins of the schoolhouse, dumb
And bashful, hang the head and wait;
The little maidens curtsey deep,
The boys their forelocks touch meanwhile,
The Vicar sees them, half asleep,
And smiles a sleepy smile.
Slow as the hand on the clock’s face,
Slow as the white cloud in the sky,
He cometh now with tottering pace
To the old vicarage hard by:
Smother’d it stands in ivy leaves,
Laurels and yews make dark the ground;
The swifts that build beneath the eaves
Wheel in still circles round.
And from the portal, green and dark,
He glances at the church-clock old—
Gray soul! why seek his eyes to mark
The creeping of that finger cold?
He cannot see, but still as stone
He pauses, listening for the chime,
And hears from that green tower intone
The eternal voice of Time.
poem by William Cosmo Monkhouse
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Memories
I remember my father’s garden
Roses grew in full bloom behind the maple tree
That has always been there, in my memory,
Its trunk seemed golden
Beneath the light of the moon and stars in the evening and
At dawn, it would capture the rays of the sun,
Turning copper beneath the shadows cast by the mountains;
I have always adored the nighttime hours-
The stars seemed magical to me, glistening within the darkness and
The moon brings me peace of mind, quietly sleeping,
As its gentle rays illuminated the sky, giving just enough light
So I could see the roses, trees and wildflowers that decorated my father’s garden.
My father passed away twenty years ago and
I can recall his love for nature and his passion for the silence of the evening hours-
So much like mine-so many memories have escaped me but
I can still hear his laughter ringing throughout the valley near our home,
And every time I look upward toward the moon at twilight,
I can nearly see his smile shining through its muted light-
As a gentle breeze would blow, rustling the leaves upon the trees-
It would remind me that my father’s soul is still alive-
I see his face in every rose and his hands grasping the branches on the trees-
And I have always believed that even though people die and
Though their bodies may never be seen again,
The love and recollection of their spirits remain
In the places that they so loved-
My father’s home was in his garden amongst the maple trees, roses and wildflowers, and
In my innermost thoughts, it is there where he remains- and
Every day and every night, when I walk amongst the trees and flowers
I can hear his voice calling my name and in my heart I know
He can still hear my voice and see my face, as in the light of the moon and stars-
We shall be bonded in spirit for an eternity.
Claudia Krizay
poem by Claudia Krizay
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My Morning
the house is surrounded by trees
and birds sleep there
some of those who do not have fears
made their nests
and this early morning i hear them sing
chirp if you may call it
but there is this feeling that nature is there
in the songs of birds
and the hush of the wind and the coming
bright rays of the sun
my dog is beside me
still asleep as i begin my prayers and rituals
for the day
behind the black shadows of the trees
the gray horizon starts
to brighten and now the mountains begin to
appear in view
their peaks touching the skies
as the clouds hang and float and drift....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Night and Wind
The night is light and chill,
Stars are awake in the sky,
There's a cloud over the moon;
Round the house on the hill
The wind creeps with its cry
Between a wail and a croon.
I hear the voice of the wind,
The voice of the wind in the night,
Cry and sob and weep,
As the voice of one that hath sinned
Moaning aloud in its might
In the night when he cannot sleep.
Sleep? No sleep is about.
What remembering sin
Wakes and watches apart?...
The wind wails without,
And my heart is wailing within,
And the wind is the voice of my heart.
poem by Arthur Symons
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sligo dream of Lorca
I dream of lorca
as the hills are lit by dawn.
The Sligo landscape into view,
the farmers wife with porridge
the breakfast makes.
The farmers early breakfasting
for sheep hills to be tended,
the cows awaken in the dawn,
the son in Boston breaks the
mother distant heart,
the field yields slow.
The outline of the trees,
seen at night as shadow,
into life will come at day,
as Lorca dies beneath the blows
as Christ three times he falls.
As he falls the frosted dawn,
the yearning pining of the sligo
hill comes into view beneath
the slow sun start.
I dream of lorca as he falls beneath
the blow of ignorance, beneath
the meadow copse and field of Spain.
Though vines cry and grapes bleed.
And green is the land,
where to school by the gate he would have passed
to learning,
and the farmer eats the toast and egg,
the day is cast,
and into shape the dream emerges
from the falling down,
the falling down of Lorca,
in another place
brings in the light of day.
poem by Bernard Kennedy
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Fear Is What Quickens Me
1
Many animals that our fathers killed in America
Had quick eyes.
They stared about wildly,
When the moon went dark.
The new moon falls into the freight yards
Of cities in the south,
But the loss of the moon to the dark hands of Chicago
Does not matter to the deer
In this northern field.
2
What is that tall woman doing
There, in the trees?
I can hear rabbits and mourning dovees whispering together
In the dark grass, there
Under the trees.
3
I look about wildly.
poem by James Arlington Wright
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Caravan I
Caravan I across the blue
Sail through endless skies
Embrace me in your eyes
A black knight falling
Luna calling in silhouetted dramas
Theatres of shadow play
He’s only trying for the light
He’s only trying for a day.
My skin is creeping
I fight now whispers of forgotten loss
The one moss unsleeping breathes
Life upon young life dying
New worlds for poets sighing
His voice it crawls beneath my skin
Who let him in?
When will be leave?
Who will believe me when I say?
I can not remember escaping the day
His voice it shatters my soul
Creeping still and forever unsleeping
Hold on to tiring night.
Loose me in your sight to find me
Be kind to me
I’m more than I appear to be.
poem by David Lacey
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Feel the dark
Feel the dark, black as coal
and soft as velvet,
beneath your fingertips
Dark is upon the night
Darkness all about me
In my own solemn silence
The silence has substance
As thick as can be
Silence about me
As loud as a scream
In a nightmarish dream
It can terrify me
Silence has a feel
Of darkness in silk cloaked
As a desperate cry being choked
Phantasmic, yet real
As Quiet surrounds me
The silence has substance
The absence of presence
is deafening to me
Those sounds of silence
Cry out to those who seek
The companionship of shadows.
A vast endless vacuum
Of blackened day,
I am sucked into an existence
summoning the cold from the depths
Where darkness looms over,
It cradles me in comfort,
Blankets me with security.
Released from the mares that haunt the mind
And taken in by them
The shielding shadows of the dark,
I am embellished with life anew
And unleashing the fear the light kept hidden.
Away from the solitude reaped
By the scars of wounds that bite.
In a playground of discontent
with creeping shadows
In an asylum of euphoria,
Under the veil of darkness
Do I smile and frolic,
Soothed by the kiss of night.
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
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Sonnet XV. On The Grasshopper And Cricket
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead
In summer luxury, -- he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
poem by John Keats
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On the Grasshopper and Cricket
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
poem by John Keats
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Poinciana
(simon/bernier)
Blow...tropic wind...
Sing a song...through the trees.
Trees...sigh to me...
Soon my love...i will see.
Poinciana,
Your branches speak to me of love.
Pale moon is casting shadows from above.
Poinciana,
Somehow I feel the jungle beat
Within me, there grows a rhythmic, savage
Beat.
Love is everywhere, its magic perfume fills the air.
To and fro, you sway, my hearts in time,
Ive learned to care.
Poinciana,
Though skies may turn from blue to gray,
My love will live for ever and a day.
Blow....tropic wind,
Sing a song through the trees.
Trees...sigh to me
Soon my love... I will see.
Poinciana...
song performed by by Nat King Cole
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song of the Pilgrims, The
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)
What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .
Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons! For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .
Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
On the old shrines of home. Our kin
Have built them temples, and therein
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
In little houses lovable,
Being happy (we remember how!)
And peaceful even to death. . . .
O Thou,
God of all long desirous roaming,
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
And crying after lost desire.
Hearten us onward! as with fire
Consuming dreams of other bliss.
The best Thou givest, giving this
Sufficient thing -- to travel still
Over the plain, beyond the hill,
Unhesitating through the shade,
Amid the silence unafraid,
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
Against the black and muttering trees
Thine altar, wonderfully white,
Among the Forests of the Night.
poem by Rupert Brooke
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The Song of the Pilgrims
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)
What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .
Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons! For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .
Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
On the old shrines of home. Our kin
Have built them temples, and therein
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
In little houses lovable,
Being happy (we remember how!)
And peaceful even to death. . . .
O Thou,
God of all long desirous roaming,
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
And crying after lost desire.
Hearten us onward! as with fire
Consuming dreams of other bliss.
The best Thou givest, giving this
Sufficient thing - to travel still
Over the plain, beyond the hill,
Unhesitating through the shade,
Amid the silence unafraid,
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
Against the black and muttering trees
Thine altar, wonderfully white,
Among the Forests of the Night.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1907)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Penumbra
As I sit here in the quiet Summer night,
Suddenly, from the distant road, there comes
The grind and rush of an electric car.
And, from still farther off,
An engine puffs sharply,
Followed by the drawn-out shunting scrape of a freight train.
These are the sounds that men make
In the long business of living.
They will always make such sounds,
Years after I am dead and cannot hear them.
Sitting here in the Summer night,
I think of my death.
What will it be like for you then?
You will see my chair
With its bright chintz covering
Standing in the afternoon sunshine,
As now.
You will see my narrow table
At which I have written so many hours.
My dogs will push their noses into your hand,
And ask—ask—
Clinging to you with puzzled eyes.
The old house will still be here,
The old house which has known me since the beginning.
The walls which have watched me while I played:
Soldiers, marbles, paper-dolls,
Which have protected me and my books.
The front-door will gaze down among the old trees
Where, as a child, I hunted ghosts and Indians;
It will look out on the wide gravel sweep
Where I rolled my hoop,
And at the rhododendron bushes
Where I caught black-spotted butterflies.
The old house will guard you,
As I have done.
Its walls and rooms will hold you,
And I shall whisper my thoughts and fancies
As always,
From the pages of my books.
You will sit here, some quiet Summer night,
Listening to the puffing trains,
But you will not be lonely,
For these things are a part of me.
And my love will go on speaking to you
Through the chairs, and the tables, and the pictures,
As it does now through my voice,
And the quick, necessary touch of my hand.
poem by Amy Lowell
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