------>Nature Poems <-----

NATURE POEMS

Seagull

The Train of Life

WE traced the bleak ridge, to and fro,
Grave forty, gay fourteen;
While yellow larks, in heaven's blue glow,
Like laughing stars were seen,
And rose-tipp'd larches, fringed below,
Shone fabulously green.

And as I watched my restless son
Leap over gorse and briar,
And felt his golden nature run
With April sap and fire,
Methought another madpate spun
Beside another sire.

Sudden, the thirty years slip by,
Shot like a curtain's rings!
My father treads the ridge, and I
The boy that leaps and flings,
While eyes that in the churchyard lie
Seem smiling tenderest things.

The Fallen Rose

LIFE, like an overweighted shaken rose,
Falls, in a cloud of colour, to my feet;
Its petals strew my first November snows,
Too soon, too fleet!

'Twas my own breath had blown the leaves apart,
My own hot eyelids stirred them where they lay;
It was the tumult of my own bright heart
Broke them away.

Outer and Inner

FROM twig to twig the spider weaves
At noon his webbing fine.
So near to mute the zephyrs flute
That only leaflets dance.
The sun draws out of hazel leaves
A smell of woodland wine.
I wake a swarm to sudden storm
At any step's advance.

Along my path is bugloss blue,
The star with fruit in moss;
The foxgloves drop from throat to top
A daily lesser bell.
The blackest shadow, nurse of dew,
Has orange skeins across;
And keenly red is one thin thread
That flashing seems to swell.

My world I note ere fancy comes,
Minutest hushed observe:
What busy bits of motioned wits
Through antlered mosswork strive.
But now so low the stillness hums,
My springs of seeing swerve,
For half a wink to thrill and think
The woods with nymphs alive.

I neighbor the invisible
So close that my consent
Is only asked for spirits masked
To keep from trees and flowers.
And this because with them I dwell
In thought, while calmly bent
To read the lines dear Earth designs
Shall speak her life on ours.

Accept, she says; it is not hard
In woods; but she in towns
Repeats, accept; and have we wept,
And have we quailed with fears,
Or shrunk with horror, sure reward
We have whom knowledge crowns;
Who see in mold the rose unfold,
The soul through blood and tears.

Nature and Life

LEAVE the uproar! At a leap
Thou shalt strike a woodland path,
Enter silence, not of sleep,
Under shadows, not of wrath;
Breath which is the spirit's bath,
In the old Beginnings find,
And endow them with a mind,
Seed for seedling, swathe for swathe.
That gives Nature to us, this
Give we her, and so we kiss.

Fruitful is it so--but hear
How within the shell thou art,
Music sounds; nor other near
Can to such a tremor start.
Of the waves our life is part;
They our running harvests bear--
Back to them for manful air,
Laden with the woodland's heart!
That gives Battle to us, this
Give we it, and good the kiss.

Outer and Inner

Nature and Life

Come Into the Garden, Maud

COME into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lordlover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever, mine."

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash'd in the hall;
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,
Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewelprint of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

Amphion

MY father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree,
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbors when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion!
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down
Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.

The linden broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
And down the middle, buzz! she went
With all her bees behind her:
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.

Came wet-shod alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree:
Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.

And wasn't it a sight to see,
When, ere his song was ended,
Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The country-side descended;
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!

Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;
So youthful and so flexile then,
You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs
And make her dance attendance;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
And scirrhous roots and tendons.

'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading;
O Lord! -- 'tis in my neighbor's ground,
The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises,
And Works on Gardening thro' there,
And Methods of transplanting trees
To look as if they grew there.

The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbors clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
The spindlings look unhappy.
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil,
And years of cultivation,
Upon my proper patch of soil
To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom:
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

Flower in the Crannied Wall

FLOWER in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower--but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

NOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

Come not, when I am dead

COME not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime
I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of time,
And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie;
Go by, go by.

Far--Far--Away

WHAT sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far--far--away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far--far--away.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far--far--away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far--far--away?

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far--far--away?

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far--far--away?

Loss and Restoration of Smell

Dull to the year's first odours, I rebelled
Against the law which doomed the violets
Ere I had smelt them; but, ere long, I held
A quickened nostril over all the sweets
Of the full summer--for I had besuoght
The All-Giver to restore my blunted sense;
Humbly I prayed, and breath of roses brought
The answer. O! it was a joy intense,
After that dreary interval of loss.
I laughed, I ran about as one possessed;
And now that winter seems my hopes to cross
I snuff the very frost with happy zest,
Proud of recovered power, and fain to win
Fresh triumphs for it, when the Spring comes in.

We Cannot Keep Delight

We cannot keep delight--we cannot tell
One tale of steady bliss, unwarped, uncrost,
The timid guest anticipates his farewell,
And will not stay to hear it from his host!
I saw a child upon a summer's day,
A child upon the margin of a pond,
Catch at the boughs that came within his way,
>From a fair fruit-tree on the bank beyond;
The gale that swayed them from him aye arose,
And seldom sank into such kindly calm
As gave his hand upon the bunch to close;
Which then but left its fragrance on his palm;
For the wind woke anew from its repose,
And bore the fruit away, but wafted all its balm.

Calvus to a Fly

Ah! little fly, alighting fitfully
In the dim dawn on this bare head of mine,
Which spreads a white and gleaming track for thee,
When chairs and dusky wardrobes cease to shine.
Though thou are irksome, let me not complain;
Thy foolish passion for my hairless head
Will spend itself, when these dark hours are sped,
And thou shalt seek the sunlight on the pane.
But still beware! thou art on dangerous ground:
An angry sonnet, or a hasty hand,
May slander thee, or crush thee: thy shrill sound
And constant touch may shake my self-command:
And thou mayst perish in that moment's spite,
And die a martyr to thy love of light.

A Brilliant Day

O keen pellucid air! nothing can lurk
Or disavow itself on this bright day;
The small rain-plashes shine from far away,
The tiny emmet glitters at his work;
The bee looks blithe and gay, and as she plies
Her task, and moves and sidles round the cup
Of this spring flower, to drink its honey up,
Her glassy wings, like oars that dip and rise,
Gleam momently. Pure-bosom'd, clear of fog,
The long lake glistens, while the glorious beam
Bespangles the wet joints and floating leaves
Of water-plants, whose every point receives
His light; and jellies of the spawning frog,
Unmark'd before, like piles of jewels seem.

The Planet and the Tree

The evening breeze is blowing from the lea
Upon the fluttering elm; thou hast a mind,
O star! methinks, to settle in the tree--
But, ever baffled by the pettish wind,
Thou movest back and forward, and I find
A pastime for my thoughts in watching thee;
In thy vast orbit thou art rolling now,
And wottest not how to my human eye
Thou seemest flouted by a waving bough,
Serving my fancy's needs right pleasantly;
Thou wottest not--but He who made thee knows
Of all thy fair results both far and near,
Of all thine earthly, all thine heavenly shows--
The expression of thy beauty there and here.

Missing the Meteors

A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt--
Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights,
When the air met and burst the aerolites,
Making the men stare and the children shout:
Why did no beam from all that rout and rush
Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head?
Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush
My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead
Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained,
My very soul, to have slept while others woke,
While little children their delight outspoke,
And in their eyes' small chambers entertained
Far motions of the Kosmos! I mistook
The purpose of that night--it had not rained.

A Forest Sunset

Once on a glorious and resplendent eve,
Through copse and underwood my path I broke;
The shining sun was on the point to leave,
And flashed through thickets of the pine and oak;
'Twas sweet to see those vari-coloured rays
Come pouring through the coverts silently;
Through little fluttering loop-holes, set ablaze,
Or blinkt, at will, by shifting of an eye;
That evening's charms were rich and manifold,
Beyond the reach of my best utterance;
'Twas some kind Providence, no common chance,
Which made mine eyes wink at those wells of gold
Sprung in the glooming leafage, while the dance
Of wilding-boughs was pleasant to behold.

Arms Old and New

How changed our warfare and the arms we wield!
The Phalanx, once the Macedonian's pride,
Has fled disheartened from the battle-field,
Since Flamininus pierced its wounded side:
Gone is the Roman Legion's tramp and clang:
The Ram assaults not now the leaguered wall;
Our English Bowman is beyond recall--
The Rifle cracks where late the arrow sang!
The Trumpet lingers yet beyond them all,
But to its voice no mail-clad warrior hies,
Not lifts a shield against the cannon-ball;
High up the Shrapnel holds its burning breath;
Within our bays the grim Torpedo lies,--
We arm the depths above us and beneath!

East or West?

I sat within a window, looking west,
On a fair autumn eve; the forest leaves
Moved o'er a fiery sunset, vision blest
After that day of storm and rainy eaves.
While thus I gazed, I heard a sweet voice cry:--
"Come to the east, and see the rainbow die.
On the last shower anon the moon will rise,
And light the village when the rainbow dies."
Betwixt the two I cold not well decide;
For each was fair, and both would vanish soon.
But that sweet voice cried eastward still: I knew
No light would pierce the wood when day withdrew;
So I went east and to the rising moon
The village brightened when the rainbow died.

Token Lights. A Contrast

Of old, when Greek and Trojan took the field,
Before a lance was thrown or goat-horn bended,
The god, who on some favourite chief attended
Lit up a sudden flame from helm and shield;
We need no palpable approach of fire,
No visual intimation to be made,
Nor do we with our natural eyes require
To test our Guardian-God's protecting aid;
>From holier heavens our token-lights descend
Upon our Christian weapons, zeal and love,
To embolden and support us to the end
Of that great war through which we daily move,
To raise our drooping hearts and give us sight
Of our great Master's presence in the fight.

Morning Sorrows

Sad memory wakes anew at morning's touch
And, as some muscles move without our will,
She seizes, with involuntary clutch,
The sorrow that we hate, our bosom ill;
But we are formed with such fine wisdom, such
A Providence our moral need supplies,
That we can seldom overrate our sighs
Nor prize our organs of regret too much;
Then welcome still these ever-new returns
Of anguish! Who escapes or can escape
The burthen, while the great world sins and mourns?
Grief comes to all, whatever be her shape
To each, but we are framed with pain to cope;
And, when we bow, we help our climbing hope.

The Half-Rainbow

The groups of Autumn flowers were all ablaze;
The hollyhock and scarlet crane's-bill burned
Like merry household fires; but when he turned
To search the distance, all was blocked with haze;
Then came a brightness over rick and roof;
He gladdened, as the running sunshine laughed
Its way from sheaf to sheaf, while, high aloof,
The rainbow lingered in one glorious shaft;
Then, in that light of promise, he appealed,
To her who was his heart's best hope; she heard
The tender suit his trembling lips preferred,
And in imperfect words her love revealed;
Her faltering accents gave a pledge divine,
Like Heaven's half-bow, a true though broken sign.

The Sea-Side Truants

Wildly she passed along that crowded shore,
With earnest eye fixed on the ocean rim:
On came the tide, and all would soon wax dim,
And she might never see her darlings more.
But lo! what means that sail-like line of light,
Advancing from the border of the sea
Into that stream of glory, golden-bright?
The mother's eye divines its mystery:
Ah! yes, it is her little white-robed band
Of children wading in the sunny brine,
That winds about the hollows in the sand:
And now, too near for doubt, they glance and shine.
Her sight was true: that far-off snowy line
Was Maud and Mary, Kate and Caroline.

Bereavement

How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner
As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops to perfection's remembrance a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.
Ah, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death?
Rest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will save
The spirit that hath faded away with the breath.
Eternity points, in its amaranth bower
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lour,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,
When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

The Cloud

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

Snow Covered Flowers

There graced
with early morning light
fruitfull expressions
the plums,the pears
the spires of grape hyacinth
lightly shaded
with a delicate layer
frozen in a soft moment.
Here knowing
nothing of god
nor war
only the dawning warmth
revealing snow covered flowers

Awoke this morning

in a sea filled dream
cool moist salt infused air
cries of gulls drifting inward
a small engined plane echoing
enveloped my thoughts releasing
them into my blood singing heart
opening all my senses
to a desert inland sea
where dissolved
I abandoned
my tethered
threads
floating
upon
cloud
infused
oceanic
memories
from below
resting balanced
a moment gathering
all rivers in life's pool
awoke this morning
suspended quiet
as the cool
moist air
passes.

Waiting patiently

as i float effortlessly
along the path
my feet barely touching
my eyes gently gazing
my lungs powerfully heaving
yet the breath is gentle,
and where is the winter
hidden in fear of the sun
only brave enough to stand
tall on the tips of the mountain
reaching toward the sky
that melts it's very being.
I fear the winter
as i fear the sun
such a tiny fear
so easy,so near
keeping me honest
knowing here
is nothing so clear
as this fear.

SOMETIMES WHEN IT RAINS

Inside, mesmerized
taken by surprise
gone, the day
fear takes me away

Outside the night cries
something within me dies
can't seem to bear the pain
sometimes i hate the rain...

Windows to the past
open horizons, vast
unventured, unexplored
before me lies the door

A memory guides me along
to a time when love was strong
to a place where i belong
into the heartbeat of a song

The musicain watches over me
ever so protectively
she guides me toward the day
she guards me from harms way

i feel the warmth of her tears
wash away my childish fears
softly, she calls my name
sometimes i like the rain...

i listen to her cry
she sings to me a lulaby
happiness is mine again
laughter echos in the rain

Sometimes when it rains
i hear her echo back my name
whispers of a treasure
and a love mine forever

Sometimes i love the rain...

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