Nature ....

THE FLIGHT OF THE CROWS

Emily Pauline Johnson (1912)

The autumn afternoon is dying o’er

   The quiet western valley where I lie

Beneath the maples on the river shore,

   Where tinted leaves, blue waters and fair sky

   Environ all; and far above some birds are flying by

To seek their evening haven in the breast

   And calm embrace of silence, while they sing

Te Deums to the night, invoking rest

   For busy chirping voice and tired wing—

   And in the hush of sleeping trees their sleeping cradles swing.

In forest arms the night will soonest creep,

   Where somber pines a lullaby intone,

Where Nature’s children curl themselves to sleep,

   And all is still at last, save where alone

   A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.

Strange sojourn has been theirs since waking day,

   Strange sights and cities in their wandering blend

With fields of yellow maize, and leagues away

   With rivers where their sweeping waters wend

   Past velvet banks to rocky shores, in canons bold to end.

O’er what vast lakes that stretch superbly dead,

   Till lashed to life by storm-clouds, have they flown?

In what wild lands, in laggard flight have led

   Their aerial career unseen, unknown,

   Till now with twilight come their cries in lonely monotone?

The flapping of their pinions in the air

   Dies in the hush of distance, while they light

Within the fir tops, weirdly black and bare,

   That stand with giant strength and peerless height,

   To shelter fairy, bird and beast throughout the closing night.

Strange black and princely pirates of the skies,

   Would that your wind-tossed travels I could know!

Would that my soul could see, and, seeing, rise

   To unrestricted life where ebb and flow

   Of Nature’s pulse would constitute a wider life below!

Could I but live just here in Freedom’s arms,

   A kingly life without a sovereign’s care!

Vain dreams! Day hides with closing wings her charms,

   And all is cradled in repose, save where

   Yon band of black, belated crows still frets the evening air.

FLOWERS IN WINTER

   John Greenleaf Whittier

How strange to greet, this frosty morn,

In graceful counterfeit of flower,

These children of the meadows, born

Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains

The pictures of its flower sown home,

The lights and shades, the purple stains,

And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring

To the dark season’s frost and rime

This painted memory of spring

This dream of summertime.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,

Our fancy’s age renews its youth,

And dim remembered fictions take

The guise of present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac,

So old ancestral legends say,

Could call green leaf and blossom back

To frosted stem and spray.

The dry logs of the cottage wall

Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;

The clay bound swallow, at his call,

Played round the icy leaves.

The settler saw his oaken flail

Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;

From frozen pools he saw the pale

Sweet summer lilies rise.

To their old homes, by man profaned

Came the sad dryads, exiled long,

And through their leafy tongues complained

Of household use and wrong.

The beechen platter sprouted wild,

The pipkin wore its old-time green,

The cradle o’er the sleeping child

Became a leafy screen.

Haply our gentle friend hath met,

While wandering in her sylvan quest,

Haunting his native woodlands yet,

That Druid of the West;

And while the dew on leaf and flower

Glistened in the moonlight clear and still,

Learned the dusk wizard’s spell of power

And caught his trick of skill.

But welcome, be it new or old,

The gift which makes the day more bright,

And paints, upon the ground of cold

And darkness, warmth and light!

Without is neither gold nor green;

Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;

Yet, summerlike, we sit between

The autumn and the spring.

The one, with bridal blush of rose,

And sweetest breath of woodland balm,

And one whose matron lips unclose

In smiles of saintly calm.

Fill soft and deep, o winter snow!

The sweet azalea’s oaken dells,

And hide the banks where roses blow

And swing the azure bells!

O’erlay the amber violet’s leaves,

The purple aster’s brookside home,

Guard all the flower her pencil gives

Alive beyond their bloom.

And she, when spring comes round again,

By greening slope and singing flood

Shall wander, seeking, not in vain

Her darlings of the wood.

THE FOSSIL ELEPHANT

   Mary Howitt (1799-1888)

The earth is old! Six thousand years,

   Are gone since I had birth;

In the forests of the olden time,

   And the solitudes of earth.

We were a race of mighty things;

   The world was all our own.

I dwelt with the Mammoth large and strong,

   And the giant Mastodon.

No ship went over the waters then,

   No ship with oar or sail;

But the wastes of the sea were habited

   By the Dragon and the Whale.

And the Hydra down in the ocean caves

   Abode, a creature grim;

And the scaled Serpents huge and strong

   Coiled up in the waters dim.

The wastes of the world were all our own;

   A proud, imperial lot!

Man had not then dominion given,

   Or else we knew it not.

There was no city on the plain;

   No fortress on the hill;

No mighty men of strength, who came

   With armies up, to kill.

There was no iron then—no brass—

   No silver and no gold;

The wealth of the world was in its woods,

   And its granite mountains old.

And we were the kings of all the world

   We knew its breadth and length;

We dwelt in the glory of solitude,

   And the majesty of strength.

But suddenly came an awful change!

   Wherefore, ask not of me;

That it was, my desolate being shews,--

   Let that suffice for thee.

The Mammoth huge and the Mastodon

   Were buried beneath the earth;

And the Hydra and the Serpents strong,

   In the caves where they had birth!

There is now no place of silence deep,

   Whether on land or sea;

And the Dragons lie in the mountain-rock,

   As if for eternity!

And far in the realms of thawless ice,

   Beyond each island shore,

My brethren lie in the darkness stern

   To awake to life no more!

And not till the last conflicting crash

   When the world consumes in fire,

Will their frozen sepulchers be loosed,

   And their dreadful doom expire!

THE FROST SPIRIT

   John Greenleaf Whittier

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes!

   You may trace his footsteps now

      On the naked woods and the blasted fields

And the brown hill’s withered brow.

He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees

   Where their pleasant green came forth,

      And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,

Have shaken them down to earth.

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes!

   From the frozen Labrador,

      From the icy bridge of the northern seas,

Which the white bear wanders o’er,

Where the fisherman’s sail is still with ice,

   And the luckless forms below

      In the sunless cold of the lingering night

Into marble statues grow!

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes!

   On the rushing Northern blast,

      And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed

As his fearful breath went past.

With an unscorched wing he has hurried on,

   Where the fires of Hecla glow

      On the darkly beautiful sky above

And the ancient ice below.

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes!

   And the quiet lake shall feel

      The torpid touch of his glazing breath,

And ring to the skater’s heel;

And the streams which danced on the broken rocks

   Or sang to the leaning grass,

      Shall bow again to their winter chain,

And in mournful silence pass.

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes!

   Let us meet him as we may,

      And turn with the light of the parlor fire

His evil power away;

And gather closer the circle ‘round,

   When the firelight dances high,

      And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend

As his sounding wing goes by!

A GARDEN SONG

   Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

Here in this sequester’d close

   Bloom the hyacinth and rose,

Here beside the modest stock

   Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;

Here, without a pang, one sees

   Ranks, conditions, and degrees.

All the seasons run their race

   In this quiet resting-place;

Peach and apricot and fig

   Here will ripen and grow big;

Here is store and overplus, --

   More had not Alcinoeus!

Here, in alleys cool and green,

   Far ahead the thrush is seen;

Here along the southern wall

   Keeps the bee his festival;

All is quiet else – afar

   Sounds of toil and turmoil are.

Here be shadows large and long;

   Here be spaces meet for song;

Grant, O garden-god, that I,

   Now that none profane is nigh,-

Now that mood and moment please,-

   Find the fair Pierides!

THE GREAT AND LITTLE WEAVERS

   Charles Roberts (1860-1943)

The great and the little weavers,

They neither rest nor sleep.

They work in the height and the glory,

They toil in the dark and the deep.

The rainbow melts with the shower,

The white-thorn falls in the gust,

The cloud-rose dies into shadow,

The earth-rose dies into dust.

But they have not faded forever,

They have not flowered in vain,

For the great and the little weavers

Are weaving under the rain.

Recede the drums of the thunder

When the Titan chorus tires,

And the bird-song piercing the sunset

Faints with the sunset fires,

But the trump of the storm shall fail not,

Nor the flute-cry fail of the thrush,

For the great and the little weavers

Are weaving under the hush.

The comet flares into darkness,

The flame dissolves into death,

The power of the star and the dew

They glow and are gone like a breath,

But ere the old wonder is done

Is the new-old wonder begun,

For the great and the little weavers

Are weaving under the sun.

The domes of an empire crumble,

A child's hope dies in tears;

Time rolls them away forgotten

In the silt of the flooding years;

The creed for which men died smiling

Decays to a beldame's curse;

The love that made lips immortal

Drags by in a tattered hearse.

But not till the search of the moon

Sees the last white face uplift,

And over the bones of the kindred

The bare sands dredge and drift,

Shall Love forget to return

And lift the unused latch,

(In his eyes the took of the traveller

On his lips the foreign catch),

Nor the mad song leave men cold,

Nor the high dream summon in vain

For the great and the little weavers

Are weaving in heart and brain.

GREEN GROWETH THE HOLLY

   Henry VIII

Green groweth the holly,

So doth the ivy.

Though winter blasts blow never so high,

Green groweth the holly.

As the holly groweth green

And never changeth hue,

So I am, ever hath been,

Unto my lady true.

As the holly groweth green

With ivy all alone

When flowers cannot be seen

And greenwood leaves be gone,

Now unto my lady

Promise to her I make,

From all other only

To her I me betake.

Adieu, mine own lady,

Adieu, my special

Who hath my heart truly

Be sure, and ever shall.

GRIZZLY

   Bret Harte

COWARD – of heroic size,

In whose lazy muscles lies

Strength we fear and yet despise;

Savage, whose relentless tusks

Are content with acorn husks;

Robber, whose exploits ne’er soared

O’er the bee’s or squirrel’s hoard;

Whiskered chin and feeble nose,

Claws of steel on baby toes,

Here, in solitude and shade,

Shambling, shuffling plantigrade,

By thy courses undismayed!

Here, where Nature makes thy bed,

Let thy rude, half-human tread

Point to hidden Indian springs,

Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses,

Hovered o’er by timid wings,

Where the wood-duck lightly passes,

Where the wild bee holds her sweets,

Epicurean retreats,

Fit for thee, and better than

Fearful spoils of dangerous man.

In thy fat-jowled deviltry

Friar Tuck shall live in thee;

Thou mayst levy tithe and dole;

Though shalt spread the woodland cheer,

From the pilgrim taking toll;

Match thy cunning with his fear;

Eat and drink and have thy fill;

Yet remain an outlaw still!

THE HEART OF NIGHT

   Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

When all the stars are sown

Across the night-blue space,

With the immense unknown,

In silence face to face.

We stand in speechless awe

While Beauty marches by,

And wonder at the Law

Which wears such majesty.

How small a thing is man

In all that world-sown vast,

that he should hope or plan

Or dream his dream could last!

O doubter of the light,

Confused by fear and wrong,

Lean on the heart of night

And let love make thee strong!

The Good that is the True

Is clothed with Beauty still.

Lo, in their tent of blue,

The stars above the hill!

I SING OF BROOKS

   Robert Herrick

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,

   Of April, May, of June and July flowers;

I sing of Maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

   Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.

I write of youth, of love, and have access

   By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece,

   Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.

I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write

   How roses first came red and lilies white.

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing

   The court of Mab and of the Fairy King.

I write of Hell; I sing, and ever shall

Of Heaven—and hope to have it after all.

THE HOMING BEE

   Emily Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)

You are belted with gold, little brother of mine,

   Yellow gold, like the sun

That spills in the west, as a chalice of wine

   When feasting is done.

You are gossamer-winged, little brother of mine,

   Tissue winged, like the mist

That broods where the marshes melt into a line

   Of vapour sun-kissed.

You are laden with sweets, little brother of mine,

   Flower sweets, like the touch

Of hands we have longed for, of arms that entwine,

   Of lips that love much.

You are better than I, little brother of mine,

   Than I human-souled,

For you bring from the blossoms and red summer shine,

   For others, your gold.

THE LIFTING OF THE MIST

   Emily Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)

ALL the long day the vapours played

   At blindfold in the city streets,

Their elfin fingers caught and stayed

   The sunbeams, as they wound their sheets

Into a filmy barricade

   'Twixt earth and where the sunlight beats.

A vagrant band of mischiefs these,

   With wings of grey and cobweb gown;

They live along the edge of seas,

   And creeping out on foot of down,

They chase and frolic, frisk and tease

   At blind-man's buff with all the town.

And when at eventide the sun

   Breaks with a glory through their grey,

The vapour-fairies, one by one,

   Outspread their wings and float away

In clouds of colouring,

   that run Wine-like along the rim of day.

Athwart the beauty and the breast

   Of purpling airs they twirl and twist,

Then float away to some far rest,

   Leaving the skies all colour-kiss't—

A glorious and a golden West

   That greets the Lifting of the Mist.

More
Back
Home