Nature poems
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Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland,
© William Wordsworth
TOO frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed--"The Vision" tells us how--
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.
Paradise Lost: Book IX
© Patrick Kavanagh
So gloz'd the Tempter, and his proem tun'd.
Into the heart of Eve his words made way,
Though at the voice much marvelling; at length,
Not unamaz'd, she thus in answer spake:
Valeries Confession. To A Friend.
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THEY declare that I'm gracefully pretty,
The very best waltzer that whirls;
They say I am sparkling and witty,
The pearl, the queen rose-bud of girls.
The Aungeles Song.
© Thomas Hoccleve
Honured be thu, blisful heuene queene, And worschepid mot þou be in eueri place,That modier art, and veari maidë clene!Of god, oure lord, thu geten hast þat grace.Thu, cause of Ioyës art, and alle soláce, Be merite of thi gret humilite,And by the floure of thi virginite.
Honured be thu blissed ladi bright! Be thi persone, embasshëd is natúre;Of heuene blisse, augmented is the light,Be presence of so fare a crëature;Thi worthinessë pasith all mesúre; ffor vnto thin astate imperiall,No praisyng is, þat may be peregall.
Human Life, On The Denial Of Immortality
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
Lux In Tenebris
© George Essex Evans
So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed mens eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.
The Universal Prayer
© Alexander Pope
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Hymns to the Night : 5
© Novalis
In ancient times, over the widespread families of men an iron Fate ruled with dumb force. A gloomy oppression swathed their heavy souls - the earth was boundless - the abode of the gods and their home. From eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red hills of the morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the all-enkindling, living Light. An aged giant upbore the blissful world. Fast beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth. Helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods, and their kindred, glad-hearted men. The ocean's dark green abyss was the lap of a goddess. In crystal grottos revelled a luxuriant folk. Rivers, trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine - poured out by Youth-abundance - a god in the grape-clusters - a loving, motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves - love's sacred inebriation was a sweet worship of the fairest of the god-ladies - Life rustled through the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of heaven-children and earth-dwellers. All races childlike adored the ethereal, thousand-fold flame as the one sublimest thing in the world. There was but one notion, a horrible dream-shape -
That fearsome to the merry tables strode,
On Liberty and Slavery
© George Moses Horton
Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!
City Without a Name
© Czeslaw Milosz
1
Who will honor the city without a name
If so many are dead and others pan gold
Or sell arms in faraway countries?
Proem
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I LOVE the old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through,
The songs of Spensers golden days,
Arcadian Sidneys silvery phrase,
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
Declining Days
© Henry Francis Lyte
Why do I sigh to find
Life's evening shadows gathering round my way?
The keen eye dimming, and the buoyant mind
Unhinging day by day?
Basil Moss
© Henry Kendall
SING, mountain-wind, thy strong, superior song
Thy haughty alpine anthem, over tracts
To The Moon Of The South
© Richard Monckton Milnes
Let him go down,--the gallant Sun!
His work is nobly done;
Well may He now absorb
Within his solid orb
