Nature poems
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Addressed To A Young Man Of Fortune Who Abandoned Himself To An Indolent And Causeless Melancholy
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This curious imitation of the ternary metre
of Dante was written at the age of 77.]WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one dayI view'd the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.Close pack'd they stand, that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones, that to the death contended,Are lying cross'd,--to lie for ever, fated.
Summer
© Samuel Johnson
O Phoebus! down the western sky,
Far hence diffuse thy burning ray,
Thy light to distant worlds supply,
And wake them to the cares of day.
Be Not Dismayed
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death
Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.
The Meeting Of The Dryads
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
IT was not many centuries since,
When, gathered on the moonlit green,
Beneath the Tree of Liberty,
A ring of weeping sprites was seen.
Seddon
© George Essex Evans
Nature, that builds great minds for mighty tasks,
Sculptured his frame to match the soul within;
Taught him how wisdom wields the power it asks;
For each new conquest set him more to win.
Trilogy of Passion: II. ELEGY.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on high.
Hans Sachs' Poetical Mission.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon as the spring-sun meets his view,
Repose begets him labour anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.
Jupiter And Fortune.
© Mary Barber
Enough--the Thunderer reply'd;
But say, whom have you satisfy'd?
These boasted Gifts are thine, I own;
But know, Content is mine alone.
Cat-pie.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHILE he is mark'd by vision clearWho fathoms Nature's treasures,
The man may follow, void of fear,Who her proportions measures.Though for one mortal, it is true,These trades may both be fitted,
Yet, that the things themselves are twoMust always be admitted.Once on a time there lived a cookWhose skill was past disputing,
Who in his head a fancy tookTo try his luck at shooting.So, gun in hand, he sought a spotWhere stores of game were breeding,
Love As A Landscape Painter.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover'd.
Original Preface.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In addition to those portions of Goethe's poetical works which
are given in this complete form, specimens of the different other
classes of them, such as the Epigrams, Elegies, &c., are added,
as well as a collection of the various Songs found in his Plays,
making a total number of about 400 Poems, embraced in the present
volume.
To Belinda.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This song was also written for Lily. Goethe
mentions, at the end of his Autobiography, that he overheard her
singing it one evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.]
To Charlotte.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
'MIDST the noise of merriment and glee,'Midst full many a sorrow, many a care,
Charlotte, I remember, we remember thee,How, at evening's hour so fair,
Thou a kindly hand didst reach us,When thou, in some happy placeWhere more fair is Nature s face,Many a lightly-hidden trace
Of a spirit loved didst teach us.Well 'tis that thy worth I rightly knew,--That I, in the hour when first we met,While the first impression fill'd me yet,
The Optimist.
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
The fields were bleak and sodden. Not a wing
Or note enlivened the depressing wood,
The Godlike.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
NOBLE be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.
Hero And Leander. The Third Sestiad
© George Chapman
New light gives new directions, fortunes new,
To fashion our endeavours that ensue.
Sonnet 99: When Far-Spent Night
© Sir Philip Sidney
When far-spent night persuades each mortal eye,
To whom nor art nor nature granted light,
To lay his then mark-wanting shafts of sight,
Clos'd with their quivers, in sleep's armory;
Starting From Paumanok
© Walt Whitman
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced-stars, rain, snow,
my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
