Nature poems
/ page 181 of 287 /
I Care Not for These Ladies
© Thomas Campion
I care not for these ladies,
That must be wooed and prayed:
My Mother-Land
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Death! What of death?--
Can he who once drew honorable breath
In liberty's pure sphere,
Foster a sensual fear,
When death and slavery meet him face to face,
Phillis I Long Yr Powr Have Ownd
© Thomas Parnell
Phillis I long yr powr have ownd
& you still gently swayd
Pretty
© Stevie Smith
Why is the word pretty so underrated?
In November the leaf is pretty when it falls
The stream grows deep in the woods after rain
And in the pretty pool the pike stalks
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry: American Life in Poetry #17 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.
The Peace of Wild Things
Ode For September
© Robert Laurence Binyon
On that long day when England held her breath,
Suddenly gripped at heart
And called to choose her part
Between her loyal soul and luring sophistries,
Bright Star
© John Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
By The Potomac
© Thomas Bailey Aldrich
The soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves
By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower
Thanatopsis
© William Cullen Bryant
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.
Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi.
"O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
Nature's Praise
© John Austin
Hark, my soul, how everything
Strives to serve our bounteous King:
Each a double tribute pays,
Sings its part, and then obeys.
To the Right Honourable The Countess Dowager Of Devonshire, On A Piece Of Wiessen's
© Matthew Prior
Wiessen and nature held a long contest
If she created or he painted best;
I Wasn’t One of the Six Million: And What Is My Life Span? Open Closed Open
© John Wesley
3
And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt:
the Red Sea parts, I cross on dry land,
two walls of water, on my right hand and on my left.
Pharaoh’s army and his horsemen behind me. Before me the desert,
perhaps the Promised Land, too. That is my life span.
Nature, Betrothed and Wedded
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
HAVE you not noted how in early spring,
From out the forests, past the murmuring brooks,
O'er the hillsides, Nature, with airy grace,
Like some fair virgin, touched by lights and shades,
A Vision of a Wrangler, of a University, of Pedantry, and of Philosophy
© James Clerk Maxwell
Deep St. Mary’s bell had sounded,
And the twelve notes gently rounded
The Grand Canyon
© Henry Van Dyke
How still it is! Dear God, I hardly dare
To breathe, for fear the fathomless abyss
Will draw me down into eternal sleep.
Sonnet 109: "O! never say that I was false of heart,..."
© William Shakespeare
O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,
