Beneath the frost-stripped forest boughs, the drifted leaves are spread,Vanished all summer’s green delight, all autumn’s glory fled. Yet, gathering strength from that dead host, the tree in some far springShall toward the skies a denser growth, a darker foliage fling. Ah, if some power from us, long dead, should strengthen life to be,We need … More Poetry – Fallen Leaves
“I have no time for those things now,” we say;“But in the future just a little way,No longer by this ceaseless toil oppressed,I shall have leisure then for thought and rest.When I the debts upon my land have paid,Or on foundations firm my business laid,I shall take time for discourse long and sweetWith those beloved … More Poetry – Preparation
Pale coin, what various hands have you passed throughEre you to-day within my hand were laid?Perchance a laborer’s well-earned hire you made;Some miser may have gloated long on you;Perhaps some pitying hand to Want outthrew;And, lost and won through devious tricks of trade,You may have been, alas! the full price paidFor some poor soul that … More Poetry – To A Silver Dollar
I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand … More Poetry – Daffodils
LAST comes December with his ruffian windWhirled from the maelstrom of the polar seaTo sweep our mighty hill in mockeryOf such enshrouding snows as would be kindAnd wrap their frozen mother. Stiffly linedThrough thin and crackling ice the leaves lie starkAs hoar Caina’s ice-locked souls, and darkIn the dark air the branches toss and grind. … More Poetry – Hampton Holidays
The Trestle and the Buck-SawWent out a-walking once,And staid away and staid awayFor days and weeks and months:And when they got back home again,Of all that had occurred,The neighbors said the gossips saidThey never said a word. — James Whitcomb Riley
EVEN in her mourning is the College fair,With burial robes of scarlet leaves and goldThat flicker down in misty morning coldOr fall reluctant through gray evening air.The Gothic elms rise desolately bare;A clinging flame the twisted ivy crawlsIts blood-red course athwart the time-worn wallsAnd spreads its crimson arras everywhere. High noon brings some wan ghost … More Poetry – November In Cambridge
We say and we say and we say,We promise, engage, and declare,Till a year from to-morrow is yesterday,And yesterday is—Where? — James Whitcomb Riley
Poetry – IF by Rudyard Kipling
#art, #creativewriting, #happy, #instagood, #instapoet, #life, #love, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrycommunity, #poetryisnotdead, #poetsofig, #poetsofinstagram, #qotd, #quote, #spilledink, #wisdom, #wordgasm, #wordporn, #words, #writer, #writerscommunity, #writersofig, #writersofinstagram, #writing, #writingcommunity, #author, #Poems, #Quotes … More Poetry – IF
DEAD is the day, and through the list’ning leavesThe wind-dirge sighs. Sad at my dim-lit paneI darkling sit to hear the pattering rainAnd pebbly drip that plashes from the eaves.Far in the misty fields loll sodden sheaves,Whilst every wheel-mark in the rutty laneLeads down its trickling rivulet to drainMarsh-meadows where the knotted willow grieves. Gray … More Poetry – August Rain
Spades take up leavesNo better than spoons,And bags full of leavesAre light as balloons. I make a great noiseOf rustling all dayLike rabbit and deerRunning away. But the mountains I raiseElude my embrace,Flowing over my armsAnd into my face. I may load and unloadAgain and againTill I fill the whole shed,And what have I then? … More Poetry – Gathering Leaves
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that … More The Road Not Taken
BY THE old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea,There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! “Come you back to Mandalay,Where the old Flotilla lay:Can’t you ‘ear their paddles … More Poetry – Mandalay
Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, That is known as the Children’s Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study, I see in the lamplight, Descending the … More Poetry – The Children’s Hour
“The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” —ISAIAH XXXV. I. Be-hold the flow-ers of June! how fair And bright their buds ap-pear, As, open-ing to the sum-mer air, Our eyes and hearts they cheer! Who would have thought there could a-bound Such beau-ty and de-light Be-neath the cold and win-try ground That hid … More Poetry – Summer Flowers
The haw-thorn blos-som, snow-y white, Hangs thick upon the hedge to-day; With many flow-ers the fields are bright Upon this mer-ry First of May. So let us ga-ther flow-er-ets fair, And blos-soms from the haw-thorn spray, To deck our May-pole stand-ing there, Upon this mer-ry First of May. And then, like fai-ries, in a ring, … More Poetry – The First Of May
SILENCE and peace. The warm, love-bringing NightFrom the pure zenith soft and slow descendingLulls the sweet air to rest, with the day’s ending,Save where the dark bat wheels his fickle flight.Deep glows the rosy-golden West, still bright,Beyond the plumy toss of elms down-bending,Whilst on the close-cut lawns, blurring and bending,Tall chapel-windows cast their ruddy light. … More Poetry – May Evening
Whom meet we, Betsey, in the wood?The Lady Pheasant and her Brood;So stand we still, to let them passOn oak-leaves through the tasselled grass. Down dappled aisles of hazel shadeThey disappear along the glade,My Lady in her rusty gown,Ten children clad in useful brown. But one fledged laggard stops to eatThe plantain seeds at Betsey’s … More Poetry – The Lady Pheasant
Within our garden walls you seeA huge old-fashioned mulberryWhose purple fruit in summer fallsInto the shade below the walls. Its blackened trunk grows grim and hardFrom the harsh gravel of the yard,Its crest beholds the winds go byAnd scans the milky evening sky. And like this tree my soul makes mirth,(Though rooted deep in blackened … More Poetry – The Mulberry
The proper way to eat a fig, in society,Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower. Then you throw away the skinWhich is just like a four-sepalled calyx,After you have taken off the blossom with your lips. But … More Poetry – Fig
I love you, rotten,Delicious rottenness. I love to suck you out from your skinsSo brown and soft and coming suave,So morbid, as the Italians say. What a rare, powerful, reminiscent flavorComes out of your falling through the stages of decay:Stream within stream. Something of the same flavor as Syracusan muscat wineOr vulgar Marsala. Though even … More Poetry – Medlars And Sorb-Apples
When did you start your tricksMonsieur? What do you stand on such high legs for?Why this length of shredded shankYou exaltation? Is it so that you shall lift your centre of gravity upwardsAnd weigh no more than air as you alight upon me,Stand upon me weightless, you phantom? I heard a woman call you the … More Poetry – The Mosquito
Emblem of life, see changeful April sailIn varying vest along the shadowy skies,Now bidding Summer’s softest zephyrs rise,Anon recalling Winter’s stormy gale,And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail:Then smiling through the tear that dims her eyes,While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes,Promise of sunshine not so prone to fail.So, to us sojourners in … More Poetry – April
“Thou makest the earth soft with showers: Thou bless-est the spring-ing there-of.” —PSALM lxv. 10. When A-pril skies be-gin to frown, And the cold rain comes pelt-ing down, We must not grum-ble nor com-plain, Nor i-dly say, we hate the rain. God sends the rain; the dust-y ground It soft-ens in the fields a-round; The … More Poetry – April Showers
Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, and the rooks cry and call.Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, and a star overall,Thereby the rick, where they thresh, is the drone at an end,Twilight it is, and I travel the road with my friend. I think of the friends who are … More Twilight
Now the moisty wood discloses Wrinkled leaves of primèroses, While the birds, they flute and sing: Build your nests, for here is Spring. All about the open hills Daisies shew their peasant frills, Washed and white and newly spun For a festival of sun. Like a blossom from the sky, Drops a yellow butterfly, Dancing … More Poetry – Spring Morning
Sweet little unassuming flower,It stays not for an April shower,But dares to rear its tiny head,While threat’ning clouds the skies o’erspread. It ne’er displays the vain desireTo dress in flaunting gay attire;No purple, scarlet, blue, or gold,Deck its fair leaves when they unfold. Born on a cold and wintry night,Its flowing robes were snowy white;No … More Poetry – The Snow-Drop (Mower)
Across the page of spotless whiteFriends trail the pen, and in our sightGrow precious all the lines they write. As for some white-sailed ship at sea,So, little book, my watch for thee;Return with freight of love to me. — J. S. Ogilvie
The brave man is not he who feels no fear,For that were stupid and irrational;But, he whose noble soul its fear subdues.And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. — J. S. Ogilvie
Many, many welcomes, February fair-maid! Ever as of old time, Solitary firstling, Coming in the cold time, Prophet of the gay time, Prophet of the May time, Prophet of the roses, Many, many welcomes, February fair-maid! — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
