En.Citatepedia^®.ro

On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills

From the high terrace porch I watch the dawn.
No light appears, though dark has mostly gone,
Sunk from the cold and monstrous stone. The hills
Lie naked but not light. The darkness spills
Down the remoter gulleys; pooled, will stay
Too low to melt, not yet alive with day.
Below the windows, the lawn, matted deep
Under its close-cropped tips with dewy sleep,
Gives off a faint hush, all its plushy swarm
Alive with coolness reaching to be warm.
Gray windows at my back, the massy frame
Dull with the blackness that has not a name;
But down below, the garden is still young,
Of five years’ growth, perhaps, and terrace-hung,
Drop by slow drop of seeping concrete walls.
Such are the bastions of our pastorals!

Here are no palms! They once lined country ways,
Where old white houses glared down dusty days,
With small round towers, blunt-headed through small trees.
Those towers are now the hiving place of bees.
The palms were coarse; their leaves hung thick with dust;
The roads were muffled deep. But now deep rust
Has fastened on the wheels that labored then.
Peace to all such, and to all sleeping men!
I lived my childhood there, a passive dream
In the expanse of that recessive scheme.

Slow air, slow fire! O deep delay of Time!
That summer crater smoked like slaking lime,
The hills so dry, so dense the underbrush,
That where I pushed my way the giant hush
Was changed to soft explosion as the sage
Broke down to powdered ash, the sift of age,
And fell along my path, a shadowy rift.

On these rocks now no burning ashes drift;
Mowed lawn has crept along the granite bench;
The yellow blossoms of acacia drench
The dawn with pollen; and, with waxen green,
The long leaves of the eucalypti screen
The closer hills from view—lithe, tall, and fine,
And nobly clad with youth, they bend and shine.
The small dark pool, jutting with living rock,
Trembles at every atmospheric shock,
Blurred to its depth with the cold living ooze.
From cloudy caves, heavy with summer dews,
The shyest and most tremulous beings stir,
The pulsing of their fins a lucent blur,
That, like illusion, glances off the view.
The pulsing mouths, like metronomes, are true,

This is my father’s house, no homestead here
That I shall live in, but a shining sphere
Of glass and glassy moments, frail surprise,
My father’s phantasy of Paradise;
Which melts upon his death, which he attained
With loss of heart for every step he gained.
Too firmly gentle to displace the great,
He crystallized this vision somewhat late;
Forbidden now to climb the garden stair,
He views the terrace from a window chair.
His friends, hard shaken by some twenty years,
Tremble with palsy and with senile fears,
In their late middle age gone cold and gray.
Fine men, now broken. That the vision stay,
They spend astutely their depleted breath,
With tired ironic faces wait for death.

Below the garden the hills fold away.
Deep in the valley, a mist fine as spray,
Ready to shatter into spinning light,
Conceals the city at the edge of night.
The city, on the tremendous valley floor,
Draws its dream deeper for an instant more,
Superb on solid loam, and breathing deep,
Poised for a moment at the edge of sleep.

Cement roads mark the hills, wide, bending free
Of cliff and headland. Dropping toward the sea,
Through suburb after suburb, vast ravines
Swell to the summer drone of fine machines.
The driver, melting down the distance here,
May cast in flight the faint hoof of a deer
Or pass the faint head set perplexedly.
And man-made stone outgrows the living tree,
And at its rising, air is shaken, men
Are shattered, and the tremor swells again,
Extending to the naked salty shore,
Rank with the sea, which crumbles evermore.

poem by Yvor Winters
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The Return

The grass was gray with the moonlit dew,
The stones were white as I came through;
I came down the path by the thirteen yews,
Through the blocks of shade that the moonlight hews.
And when I came to the high lych-gate
I waited awhile where the corpses wait;
Then I came down the road where the moonlight lay
Like the fallen ghost of the light of day.

The bats shrieked high in their zigzag flight,
The owls' spread wings were quiet and white,
The wind and the poplar gave sigh for sigh,
And all about were the rustling shy
Little live creatures that love the night -
Little wild creatures timid and free.
I passed, and they were not afraid of me.

It was over the meadow and down the lane
The way to come to my house again:
Through the wood where the lovers talk,
And the ghosts, they say, get leave to walk.
I wore the clothes that we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there,
No one saw my pale feet pass
By my garden path to my garden grass.
My garden was hung with the veil of spring -
Plum-tree and pear-tree blossoming;
It lay in the moon's cold sheet of light
In garlands and silence, wondrous and white
As a dead bride decked for her burying.

Then I saw the face of my house
Held close in the arms of the blossomed boughs:
I leaned my face to the window bright
To feel if the heart of my house beat right.
The firelight hung it with fitful gold;
It was warm as the house of the dead is cold.
I saw the settles, the candles tall,
The black-faced presses against the wall,
Polished beechwood and shining brass,
The gleam of china, the glitter of glass,
All the little things that were home to me -
Everything as it used to be.

Then I said, 'The fire of life still burns,
And I have returned whence none returns:
I will warm my hands where the fire is lit,
I will warm my heart in the heart of it!'
So I called aloud to the one within:
'Open, open, and let me in!
Let me in to the fire and the light -
It is very cold out here in the night!'
There was never a stir or an answering breath -
Only a silence as deep as death.

Then I beat on the window, and called, and cried.
No one heard me, and none replied.
The golden silence lay warm and deep,
And I wept as the dead, forgotten, weep;
And there was no one to hear or see -
To comfort me, to have pity on me.

But deep in the silence something stirred -
Something that had not seen or heard -
And two drew near to the window-pane,
Kissed in the moonlight and kissed again,
And looked, through my face, to the moon-shroud, spread
Over the garlanded garden bed;
And--'How ghostly the moonlight is!' she said.

Back through the garden, the wood, the lane,
I came to mine own place again.
I wore the garments we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there.
No one heard my thin feet pass
Through the white of the stones and the gray of the grass,
Along the path where the moonlight hews
Slabs of shadow for thirteen yews.

In the hollow where drifted dreams lie deep
It is good to sleep: it was good to sleep:
But my bed has grown cold with the drip of the dew,
And I cannot sleep as I used to do.

poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Hills That Surround A City

There are hills that surround a city,
I do not know if everyone loves these hills as I do,
From a child to an adult, I traveled the roads of these hills,
Through all seasons these hills are inviting, to a city dweller,

There are hills that surround a city,
In summer these hills can be dangerous,
Bush fires, the enemy of all,
But a friend at times,
Trees and plants re-shoot after bush fires,
Foe to animals and residents,
Cool nights, bring summer breezes to these hills,

Autumn colours surround the hills,
And bring the city dweller to visit,
Colours line the ever winding roadways,
Magical colours along the roadways,
Breathtaking trees, so tall,
Falling leaves line the winding roadways,
Around the hills that surround a city,

Log fires creating smoke from chimneys, dot the landscapes,
During winter,
Winter rains flushes the creeks and rivers,
Throughout the hills that surround a city,
Frosts, fog create an old world atmosphere,
Don't forget your scarf, beanie's, or gloves,
It is cold in these hills,

Spring, the hills are coming alive,
Magical gardens, on display,
Watch for the colourful birds, that come alive,
There is still a chill in the air,
Grab a bit of sunshine, feel the warmth,
There is another world in these hills,
A historical world, for those who wish to visit,

The Adelaide hills surround the city,
Many abandon the city, for the day,
Or a weekend retreat,
The many winding roads amongst the Adelaide hills,
Will take you many places,
I have traveled these roads all my life,
Now I am finding many new roads to travel,
Around these hills that surround a city.

poem by Batibchar Mocculta
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The Journey

Snake River Country

I now remembered slowly how I came,
I, sometime living, sometime with a name,
Creeping by iron ways across the bare
Wastes of Wyoming, turning in despair,
Changing and turning, till the fall of night,
Then throbbing motionless with iron might.
Four days and nights! Small stations by the way,
Sunk far past midnight! Nothing one can say
Names the compassion they stir in the heart.
Obscure men shift and cry, and we depart.

And I remembered with the early sun
That foul-mouthed barber back in Pendleton,
The sprawling streets, the icy station bench,
The Round-up pennants, the latrinal stench.
These towns are cold by day, the flesh of vice
Raw and decisive, and the will precise;
At night the turbulence of drink and mud,
Blue glare of gas, the dances dripping blood,
Fists thudding murder in the shadowy air,
Exhausted whores, sunk to a changeless stare.
Alive in empty fact alone, extreme,
They make each fact a mortuary dream.

Once when the train paused in an empty place,
I met the unmoved landscape face to face;
Smoothing abysses that no stream could slake,
Deep in its black gulch crept the heavy Snake,
The sound diffused, and so intently firm,
It seemed the silence, having change nor term.
Beyond the river, gray volcanic stone
In rolling hills: the river moved alone.
And when we started, charged with mass, and slow,
We hung against it in an awful flow.

Thus I proceeded until early night,
And, when I read the station’s name aright,
Descended—at the bidding of a word!
I slept the night out where the thought occurred,
Then rose to view the dwelling where I lay.
Outside, the bare land stretching far away;
The frame house, new, fortuitous, and bright,
Pointing the presence of the morning light;
A train’s far screaming, clean as shining steel
Planing the distance for the gliding heel.
Through shrinking frost, autumnal grass uncurled,
In naked sunlight, on a naked world.

poem by Yvor Winters
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In some fields of grass under the hills (sestina)

This afternoon the peaks throw a big shade
with the black cliffs shining up on the hills,
while we lay together in the long grass,
I look in your eyes that are amber-green
while under my head there is a small stone
and you smile at me like the prettiest lady.

I had once known another charming lady;
that part of my life is now left in shade,
bad churchmen were casting stone upon stone,
while I had to flee from them to the hills
to pastures were everything is green
to find the Lord in divine fields of grass.

Under your head there is a crown of grass
and your mother is a gracious, kind lady,
around us everything is lovely green
while we are still resting in the cool shade,
we are softly chatting about life’s hills,
about walls of very hard granite stone.

Your eyes are much brighter than emerald stone
while all of your words are softer than grass,
reaching higher and beyond all the hills,
the high mountain which is dangerous lady,
while from our pain nothing gives any shade,
nowhere is a place of rest that is green.

Your summer dress is lovely, is bright green,
suddenly all our ails have turned to stone
I follow you further; see your small shade,
I am seen as one that woos any lady,
we walk past some flowers growing in grass,
climbing up higher into the foothills.

Bright streams are splashing down some of the hills,
with water transparent, sometimes cold and green,
love and lust burns like in a youthful lady
while I at that moment feel cold as stone,
we notice a deer feeding on lone grass
while our garments lie under a tree’s shade.

Far into the hills you want love till dusk’s shade,
where you peep like some green moss from the grass,
are tossing me with a stone like no lady.

poem by Gert Strydom
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Evening.

The light is drawn out of the leaves and grass,
And the sweet flowers grow pale in the gray air,
As if their beauty's essence e'en did pass
With the departing light from all things fair,
As the sap in the trees when summer's fled
Draws back to the earth, leaving the leaves dead.
The sky becomes a cloud, the hills a shade,
As the mysterious darkness fills the sphere,
A monstrous elf whose tentacles are laid
In silence upon all things far and near;
Now the bats flit about the mothy damp
In which the spiders weave their airy camp.
I, too, could fill as 'twere a dreamy bed
Under the green leaves in the darkness now,
And watch the evening planet overhead
Like a dewdrop upon the airy bough
Of heaven tremble — till my soul too grew
Like liquid light in water, shining through.
And I can feel that which the dead inherit —
Peace, and the power to forego the pain
That like a vulture on the human spirit
Draws its fine essence from the fading brain,
Till every sense contracts, and the slow breath
Oozes away in the desire of death.
So from me slips the day's disquietude,
And I am made one with the night, as those
Who pass from thought into a faery mood
On Lethe's wharf, whenas old Charon goes
Into the dusk of that eternal eve
Where all must go when the earth-light they leave.

poem by Robert Crawford
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Visualize and Wonder

Night-blue, starlit river
like a ribbon across the rugged land,
reflecting a transition of the heavens
traveling from night into morning
rushing into a churning, tumbling lake
just below the mighty waterfall
icy black water in a tiny loch,
rippling like deep emerald history
ancient and wise, impenetrable mystery
smelling musty, like fresh earth,
or old books in a dusty library
the heartache glows like hot iron.
doused in this unexpected chilly water
taking away the anxiety and uplifting
thoughts come clear and clarifying,
like breathing jackfrost puffs of winter
dark walls rising up on three sides,
cradling morning in a ragged half circle
of smoothe, mossy and black mountain rock.
I love the embrace of this old rock tarn
Where the dusky green hills flow aside,
and a single worn path skirts the pool
carved, perched in a long, curved niche
above the cold, ice-fed water on one side
And stops here, just aside the curtain
that carries light in crystal swirls
from the far path on the other side
dark lines and mist converging in dew drops
Inside illusions building up like movies
Is this a time, or a place?
Or a dream of simple pleasures?
the heartache glows like warm sunlight.
Is this reality? Broken reality?
Illusions tumble apart, leaving void
Patient, comfortable void, filling me
from below the navel and up, breathing out
Close my eyes. I am smiling,
forgetting to breathe, to see,
just swinging like a slow pendulum
swinging, breathing in and out
with the open sky behind me,
and this tarn of closing dark magic,
not evil, only dark and cloudy,
like black mist obscuring an autumn night
where low above the skeletal trees
is a faint, full circle of greenish light,
that is the light on the other side,
but deeper than the night sky,
colder and further down, under the earth
exploring wide, dark caverns,
leading deeper down still,
into a black hole filled with rushing water
watching the edge of the walls rush past
and I am falling, into a wide dark void
filled with stars, and a golden light
spilling down from where the water flows in,
the droplets fling themselves into the cosmos
becoming more stars in the dark emptiness.
In the back of my head is a glowing
fading into the dull roar of massive water
Beyond the curtain of crystal clear
the light is still glowing,
the cavern, still calling.
I yearn for it, looking back as if...
hoping that I have the strength to turn back
to step through, into that world.
The morning above and behind me now,
Steep, green slope before me,
I cross out of the shadows of the tarn,
into the shafts of morning's honey
walking paths of thin brown dirt,
crossing up and down the deep green hills
into the giant woods atop the mountain
where the knowledge of flora is found
The curling mists around the tree roots
shifting and crawling deeper into the shadows
lifting simple, joyful song birds
into the morning sun and clouds.
Here between the dark forest floor,
and the vaulting forest canopy,
I am framed for a moment, looking back
at the dark V of the tarn
and the winding slip of the river,
leading away into the rocky mountains
a terrain pale and fading quickly
against the morning sun breaking free.
The dawn is so wonderful, awakening.
Light pink cuddles in the wisps of far off cumulus.
Whirling into the fall of rosy twilight tears.
Within the trees, I follow the mists
retreating into the forest depths.
Muzzy and gray, this day has yet to wake.

poem by Poet Dragon
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Summer Dawn.

Come with thy feet to the water, and bathe
Thy beauty here in the stream that will not pass!
The soft green leaves with their shadows swathe
The either bank, and under the ferns and grass
The dreamy crickets chirp in the dewy dawn,
Now that the light of the stars has grown
Into a thin pale mist in the night unknown;
The small birds twitter, whose senses quite
Have not yet out of their dreams withdrawn —
Here where my heart too waits for the light
Under the cloudy hills that soon will run
With bright feet in the ways of the sun,
As if they were but chained to the air:
Come to me now so fresh and fair —
Now that the reign of Sleep is done —
With twinkling feet in the dewy dawn!
O love, as grass comes to the lawn,
As day comes to the East, come thou —
Come to me now!

poem by Robert Crawford
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My Dog and I

My dog and I, the hills we know
Where the first faint wild roses blow,
We know the shadowy paths and cool
That wind across the woodland dim,
And where the water beetles swim
Upon the surface of the pool.

My dog and I, our feet brush through
Full oft the fragrant morning dew,
Or when the summer sun is high
We linger where the river flows,
Chattering and chuckling as it goes,
Two happy tramps, my dog and I.

Or, when the winter snows are deep,
Into some fire-lit nook we creep
And, while the north wind howls outside,
See castles in the dancing blaze,
Or, dozing, dream of summer days
And woodland stretches, wild and wide.

My dog and I are friends till death,
And when the chill, dark angel's breath
Shall call him from me, still I know

Forever friends, my dog and I.

poem by Norah M. Holland
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In a Garden

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square. . . .

Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of dusk are deep --
Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly
And stills herself to sleep.

poem by Sara Teasdale
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In The Well-Cut Blouse

Whether the hills are high for the valley is deep
Or the valley is deep for the hills are high,
I am at loss to know when my eyes fell on
The woman's breasts held in the well-cut blouse.

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Icehouse In Summer

A door sunk in a hillside, with a bolt
thick as the boy’s arm, and behind that door
the walls of ice, melting a blue, faint light,
an air of cedar branches, sawdust, fern:
decaying seasons keeping from decay.

A summer guest, the boy had never seen
(a servant told him of it) how the lake
froze three foot thick, how farmers came with teams,
with axe and saw, to cut great blocks of ice,
translucid, marbled, glittering in the sun,
load them on sleds and drag them up the hill
to be manhandled down the narrow path
and set in courses for the summer’s keeping,
the kitchen uses and luxuriousness
of the great houses. And he heard how once
a team and driver drowned in the break of spring:
the man’s cry melting from the ice that summer
frightened the sherbet-eaters off the terrace.

Dust of the cedar, lost and evergreen
among the slowly blunting water walls
where the blade edge melted and the steel saw’s bite
was rounded out, and the horse and rider drowned
in the red sea’s blood, I was the silly child
who dreamed that riderless cry, and saw the guests
run from a ghostly wall, so long before
the winter house fell with the summer house,
and the houses, Egypt, the great houses, had an end.

poem by Howard Nemerov
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Loch Leven

Beautiful Loch Leven, near by Kinross
For a good day's fishing the angler is seldom at a loss,
For the Loch it abounds with pike and trout,
Which can be had for the catching without any doubt;
And the scenery around it is most beautiful to be seen,
Especially the Castle, wherein was imprisoned Scotland's ill-starred Queen.

Then there's the lofty Lomond Hills on the Eastern side,
And the loch is long, very deep, and wide;
Then on the Southern side there's Benarty's rugged hills,
And from the tops can be seen the village of Kinross with its spinning mills.

The big house of Kinross is very handsome to be seen,
With its beautiful grounds around it, and the lime trees so green
And 'tis a magnificent sight to see, on a fine summer afternoon,
The bees extracting honey from the leaves when in full bloom.

There the tourist can enjoy himself and while away the hours,
Underneath the lime trees shady bowers,
And listen to the humming of the busy bees,
While they are busy gathering honey from the lime trees.

Then there's the old burying ground near by Kinross,
And the dead that lie there turned into dusty dross,
And the gravestones are all in a state of decay,
And the old wall around it is mouldering away.

poem by William Topaz McGonagall
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Sunset On The Bearcamp

A gold fringe on the purpling hem
Of hills the river runs,
As down its long, green valley falls
The last of summer's suns.

Along its tawny gravel-bed
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
As if its meadow levels felt
The hurry of the hill,
Noiseless between its banks of green
From curve to curve it slips;
The drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
Unstoried and unknown;
The ursine legend of its name
Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
As ever Yarrow knew,
Or, under rainy Irish skies,
By Spenser's Mulla grew;
And through the gaps of leaning trees
Its mountain cradle shows
The gold against the amethyst,
The green against the rose.

Touched by a light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God's great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
Is softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no leaf
Of all its elms is twirled
The silence of eternity
Seems falling on the world.

The pause before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this;
Yon miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills
That reach up stair on stair?
What eyes look through, what white wings fan
These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the heavenly heights
To those of earth stoops down?
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods
On Ida's snowy crown!

Slow fades the vision of the sky,
The golden water pales,
And over all the valley-land
A gray-winged vapor sails.
I go the common way of all;
The sunset fires will burn,
The flowers will blow, the river flow,
When I no more return.
No whisper from the mountain pine
Nor lapsing stream shall tell
The stranger, treading where I tread,
Of him who loved them well.

But beauty seen is never lost,
God's colors all are fast;
The glory of this sunset heaven
Into my soul has passed,
A sense of gladness unconfined
To mortal date or clime;
As the soul liveth, it shall live
Beyond the years of time.
Beside the mystic asphodels
Shall bloom the home-born flowers,
And new horizons flush and glow
With sunset hues of ours.

Farewell! these smiling hills must wear
Too soon their wintry frown,
And snow-cold winds from off them shake
The maple's red leaves down.
But I shall see a summer sun
Still setting broad and low;
The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,
The golden water flow.
A lover's claim is mine on all
I see to have and hold,--
The rose-light of perpetual hills,
And sunsets never cold!

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Comfort of the Fields

What would'st thou have for easement after grief,
When the rude world hath used thee with despite,
And care sits at thine elbow day and night,
Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief?
To me, when life besets me in such wise,
'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain,
And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth,
To roam in idleness and sober mirth,
Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain
The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes.

By hills and waters, farms and solitudes,
To wander by the day with wilful feet;
Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat;
Along gray roads that run between deep woods,
Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine,
Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred,
And only the rich-throated thrush is heard;
By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine
In bouldered crannies buried in the hills;
By broken beeches tangled with wild vine,
And long-strewn rivers murmurous with mills.

In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet
With the keen perfume of the ripening grass,
Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass,
Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite:
To haunt old fences overgrown with brier,
Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries,
Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elder-berries,
And pièd blossoms to the heart's desire,
Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom,
Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume,
And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire.

To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks,
The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn;
To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne
Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks
With iron roar of waters; far away
Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon,
To hear the querulous outcry of the loon;
To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day
On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by;
Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay
Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.

To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains,
The thresher humming from the farm near by,
The prattling cricket's intermittent cry,
The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes;
Or in the shadow of some oaken spray,
To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams,
The far-off hayfields, where the dusty teams
Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay,
And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low,
With drowsy cadence half a summer's day,
The clatter of the reapers come and go.

Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers,
The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom,
The voices of the breathing grass, the hum
Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers:
Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn,
And cool fair fingers radiantly divine,
The mighty mother brings us in her hand,
For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan,
Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine:
Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!

poem by Archibald Lampman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Oahu

Here on this island, summer never sleeps.
In the green valleys, smoke in cane-time drifts
With mist—frail tide that laps the chasmed deeps
Between the steep clean hills as the sea-tide
Once washed the silent hidden hollow rifts
And unseen valleys of its unborn bride.

Sea-bride, child of earth’s red molten womb,
Daughter of fire and chaos long since sleeping,
Who were the people that made your green hills bloom?
Wedded to the seas they were, like you;
From the dark sea, while you your watch were keeping,
They came to make their destined rendezvous.

The broad bare feet step forth on virgin sand,
And eyes raise to the green eternal hills:
Gray mist, green hills and fertile red-clay land,
Alone no more. The carefree caroling laughter
Drifts inland, where valley mist distills
The songs that shall be sung forever after.

poem by S.J. Fulton
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A Forsaken Garden

IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.

The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,
To the low last edge of the long lone land.
If a step should sound or a word be spoken,
Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?
So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,
Through branches and briars if a man make way,
He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless
Night and day.

The dense hard passage is blind and stifled
That crawls by a track none turn to climb
To the strait waste place that the years have rifled
Of all but the thorns that are touched not of time.
The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;
The rocks are left when he wastes the plain.
The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,
These remain.

Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;
As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;
From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,
Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.
Over the meadows that blossom and wither
Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song;
Only the sun and the rain come hither
All year long.

The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels
One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.
Only the wind here hovers and revels
In a round where life seems barren as death.
Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,
Haply, of lovers none ever will know,
Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping
Years ago.

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"
Did he whisper? "look forth from the flowers to the sea;
For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,
And men that love lightly may die---but we?"
And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,
And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,
In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,
Love was dead.

Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?
And were one to the endÑbut what end who knows?
Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,
As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.
Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ?
What love was ever as deep as a grave ?
They are loveless now as the grass above them
Or the wave.

All are at one now, roses and lovers,
Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.
Not a breath of the time that has been hovers
In the air now soft with a summer to be.
Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter
Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,
When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter
We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again for ever;
Here change may come not till all change end.
From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,
Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.
Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,
While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;
Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing
Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Grim Seasons

The sea shore is the gods lap
Where the timeless meet,
The grey ditch by the hedgerow
Is my heart’s slow beat,
The dark sky and the crow’s cry
And the gulls, slow wheeling,
Are sleep’s shroud in a gold cloud
On my eyes, drawn stealing.’

She turned, splintering crystal
In the dawn’s brisk chill,
The sharp scatter of silence
By the rook’s slow trill;
‘I left you for the grey day,
For the cliff’s grim seasons,
For the crisp breath, or a life’s quest
Of my own small reasons.’

‘The long shade of the sundial
For a day’s lost thought,
The moon, beamed in a cold room
Where a shadow’s caught.
I took flight for the still night
And the earth’s slow turning,
For the green hills and the clear rills
And the dream you’re torn in.’

21 February 1978

poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Matins

Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
The querulous, shrill tune.

The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
The slow, sure, sacred dawn.

Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
As the mirk curtain breaks.

Above the shadowy world,
Still more and more unfurled,
The gathered mists upcurled
Like phantoms melt and pass.
In clear-obscure revealed,
Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:
Fresh, healthy odors yield
Wet furrows, flowers, and grass.

The sudden, splendid gleam
Of one thin, golden beam
Shoots from the feathered rim
Of yon hill crowned with woods.
Down its embowered side,
As living waters slide,
So the great morning tide
Follows in sunny floods.

From bush and hedge and tree
Joy, unrestrained and free,
Breaks forth in melody,
Twitter and chirp and song:
Alive the festal air
With gauze-winged creatures fair,
That flicker everywhere,
Dart, poise, and flash along.

The shining mists are gone,
Slight films of gold swift-blown
Before the strong, bright sun
Or the deep-colored sky:
A world of life and glow
Sparkles and basks below,
Where the soft meads a-row,
Hoary with dew-fall, lie.

Does not the morn break thus,
Swift, bright, victorious,
With new skies cleared for us,
Over the soul storm-tost?
Her night was long and deep,
Strange visions vexed her sleep,
Strange sorrows bade her weep:
Her faith in dawn was lost.

No halt, no rest for her,
The immortal wanderer
From sphere to higher sphere,
Toward the pure source of day.
The new light shames her fears,
Her faithlessness, her tears,
As the new sun appears
To light her godlike way.

poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Sweet Peal

Her beauty and her love lay on the bed,
Of her sweet peal of the glowing lovely breasts;
The kisses of this night will always be remembered.
She is delicate, soft and intense;
Mixed with fresh odour from her muse,
And like the sweet peal anew on a hot summer night.
The sprout of love in her room and,
In her garden of love i do sleep all night;
And of her joy in the light of the gentle sun,
But the sensitive plant in her garden of love matters to me.
Of the power of love in this sweet place,
And of her sweet peal of the glowing lovely breasts;
But like young lovers filled with the mutual atmosphere.
Alone in this sweet glory land,
And of her love like a sea-flower unfold;
But naked and bare from the frozen air,
And so pleasant to a taste if one considers it.
The lady's gentle mind,
And of where nothing is but all seems to be well;
Cold and foul and deep and low!
Lonely as a deep sleep on the blue surface of love;
And woken with the summer dreams of love,
Oh my sweet wide west-wind!
Come closer to us to take us afar.
The blue Mediterranean where she lay is the love of hope,
And of the horizon of her love to the zenith's height!
And like the locks of the approaching storm to meet at last.
For her love is in the beauty of her delight,
Heavy and very slow to the muse that muses;
But her beauty and her love lay bare on the bed,
And like black rains and white rains!
But i will kiss her until she's worn out like the spirits of the night.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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