Famous Nature Poems - Page 3

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

A bursting into greenness;
    A waking as from sleep;
A twitter and a warble
    That make the pulses leap:
A watching, as in childhood,
    For the flowers that, one by one,
Open their golden petals
    To woo the fitful sun.
A gust, a flash, a gurgle,
    A wish to shout and sing,
As, filled with hope and gladness,
    We hail the vernal Spring.

Beautiful, beautiful summer!
    Odorous, exquisite June!
All the sweet roses in blossom,
    All the sweet birdies in tune.

Dew on the meadows at sunset;
    Gems on the meadows at morn;
Melody hushing the evening;
    Melody greeting the dawn.

All the dim aisles of the forest
    Ringing and thrilling with song;
Music—a flood-tide of music—
    Poured the green valleys along.

Rapturous creatures of beauty.
    Winging their way through the sky,
Heavenward warble their praises—
    Mount our thanksgivings as high?

Lo! when a bird is delighted,
    His ecstacy prompts him to soar;
The greater, the fuller his rapture,
    His songs of thanksgiving the more.

See how the winds from the mountains
    Sweep over meadows most fair;
The green fields are tossed like the ocean,
    Are shadowed by clouds in the air.

For now fleecy shadows are chasing
    The sunshine from woodland and vale,
As white clouds come gathering slowly,
    Blown up by the sweet-scented gale

Birds and the gales and the flowers
    Call us from study away,
Out to the fields where the mowers
    Soon will be making the hay.

Buttercups, daisies, and clover,
    Roses, sweet-briar, and fern,
Mingle their breath on the breezes—
    Who from such wooing could turn?

Out! to the heath and the mountain,
    Where mid the fern and the brake,
Under the pines and the spruces,
    Fragrant the bower we will make.

Ravishing voices of Nature,
    Ye conquer—and never too soon—
We yield to thy luscious embraces,
    Thou odorous, exquisite June!

November now is here,
    With skies of leaden hue,
And gloomy days and drear,
    And winds that pierce us through.

And on the hedge the rose,
    With leaves of tender green,
No more in beauty grows,
    And frost and snow are seen.

But still the Birds contrive,
    By hardship unsubdued,
To keep themselves alive,
    And keenly seek their food.

And thus they teach us still,
    However dark the day,
"That where there is a Will
    There always is a Way."

The laughing months have all tripped gaily by,
With flower entangled hair, lips thrilled with song;
But lingering behind the merry throng
Comes one with smile more sad than any sigh,
And 'round her moaningly the dead leaves fly.
With backward glance her eyes the way prolong—
Wide, wistful eyes, intense with yearning strong
For warm young life too early doomed to die,
While thoughts were golden hours with sunbeams sown.
Now like a blossom memory fadeth fast.
Her joy is vanished. Like a dream it passed,
Or Summer's leaves that 'round her now are blown.
She drops her flowers—a thistle falling last—
Then, sadly shivering, onward fares—alone.

So bright in death I used to say,
        So beautiful through frost and cold!
A lovelier thing I know to-day,
        The leaf is growing old,
And wears in grace of duty done,
The gold and scarlet of the sun.

My mind lets go a thousand things
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour--
'T was noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May--
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Across the lonely beach we flit,
    One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
    The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
    The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,
    One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds
    Scud, black and swift, across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
    Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
    I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,
    One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
    Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
    Nor flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong,
    He scans me with a fearless eye;
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
    The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night,
    When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
    To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
    The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God's children both,
    Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

I went to see a waterfall
    When days were dull of song.
And to its jubilant wild voice
    I listened deep and long.

I thought that it would loose my dreams,
    But, ah, it could not free
My bound heart, for it sang so loud
    It drowned the song in me.

O little wave, you come from far,
    Over the sky-line yonder.
Why do you hurry across the bar
    And fight with the wind, I wonder?

Can you be weary of ocean play?
    Did the big monsters follow?
Were you afraid that a whale to-day
    Your little self would swallow?

There, little wave, come close to land.
    Careful! I knew you'd stumble.
There goes your curly head on the sand—
    Never you mind—don't grumble.

Here are some playthings I've brought for you,—
    Buttercups, daisies, clover.
Now you will stay? Lo—off to the blue!
    Gone is my little rover.

The birds laugh loud and long together
    When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
    Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
    Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
    Might each gaze into the other's face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
    Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
    (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water's edges
    A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
    It flutters away on the summer's track.

The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
    Bowed all summer with dust and heat,
Like clean-clad children with rain-washed faces,
    Are dressed in scarlet from head to feet.
And never a flower had the boastful summer,
    In all the blossoms that decked her sod,
So royal hued as that later comer
    The purple chum of the goldenrod.

Some chill grey dawn you note with grieving
    That the King of Autumn is on his way.
You see, with a sorrowful, slow believing,
    How the wanton woods have gone astray,
They wear the stain of bold caresses,
    Of riotous revels with old King Frost;
They dazzle all eyes with their gorgeous dresses,
    Nor care that their green young leaves are lost.

A wet wind blows from the East one morning,
    The wood's gay garments looked draggled out.
You hear a sound, and your heart takes warning―
    The birds are planning their winter route.
They wheel and settle and scold and wrangle,
    Their tempers are ruffled, their voices loud;
Then whirr and away in a feathered tangle,
    To fade in the south like a passing cloud.

            Envoi
A songless wood stripped bare of glory―
    A sodden moor that is black and brown;
The year has finished its last love-story:
    Oh! let us away to the gay bright town.

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers