Nature poems
/ page 175 of 287 /
The Dance
© Gary Snyder
“Against its will, energy is doing something productive, like the devil in medieval history. The principle is that nature does something against its own will and, by self-entanglement, produces beauty.” Otto Rössler
Izanami
Gnothi Seauton
© Samuel Johnson
What then remains? Must I, in slow decline,
To mute inglorious ease old age resign?
Or, bold ambition kindling in my breast,
Attempt some arduous task? Or, were it best,
Brooding o'er lexicons to pass the day,
And in that labour drudge my life away?
The Return
© Frank Bidart
As the retreating Bructeri began to burn their own
possessions, to deny to the Romans every sustenance but
ashes,
Maxime Labelle
© William Henry Drummond
Victoriaw: she have beeg war, E-gyp's de nam' de place--
An' neeger peep dat's leev 'im dere, got very black de face,
An' so she's write Joseph Mercier, he's stop on Trois Rivieres--
"Please come right off, an' bring wit' you t'ree honder voyageurs.
from The Testament of Love
© John Hall Wheelock
from Book I, Introduction
Man’s Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense,
Sonnet LX: Like as the Waves Make towards the Pebbled Shore
© William Shakespeare
Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Nutting Song
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
The November sun invites me,
And although the chill wind smites me,
Guinevere
© Alfred Tennyson
`Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket
© Roald Dahl
I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My lifes unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Written For My Son, And Spoken By Him, At A public Examination For Victors.
© Mary Barber
Boys of a brutal, cruel Disposition,
Should go to Spain, to serve the Inquisition.
O what a Change in Landlords would appear!
Next Age, not one would rack his Tenants here.
The Philosopher To His Love
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
DEAREST, a look is but a ray
Reflected in a certain way;
A word, whatever tone it wear,
Is but a trembling wave of air;
A touch, obedience to a clause
In nature's pure material laws.
Silchester
© John Kenyon
My travels' dream and talk for many a year,
At length I view thee, hoary Silchester!
Pilgrim long vowed; now only hither led,
As with new zeal by fervent Mitford fed,
Whose voice of poesy and classic grace
Had breathed a new religion on the place.
An Essay on Criticism: Part 2
© Alexander Pope
Thus critics, of less judgment than caprice,
Curious not knowing, not exact but nice,
Form short ideas; and offend in arts
(As most in manners) by a love to parts.
The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The Fourth
© Mark Akenside
One effort more, one cheerful sally more,
Our destin'd course will finish. and in peace
Venus And Adonis
© William Shakespeare
TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.
RIGHT HONORABLE,
Bridal Song
© William Shakespeare
ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue;
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true;
The Choosing Of Valentines
© Thomas Nashe
It was the merie moneth of Februarie,
When yong men, in their iollie roguerie,
Rose earelie in the morne fore breake of daie,
To seeke them valentines soe trimme and gaie;
The Pleasures of Hope: Part 1
© Thomas Campbell
At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,
An Arbor
© Michael Rosen
The world’s a world of trouble, your mother must
have told you
that. Poison leaks into the basements
Paradise Lost: Book XI (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
He added not, for Adam at the newes
Heart-strook with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discover'd soon the place of her retire.
