"bowers" poems
'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,
But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.
And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.
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"While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.
"How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown
Squandering their sweet breath
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:
I chose the tree of death.
"Hadst thou but said me nay,
Adam, my brother,
I might have pined away;
I, but none other:
God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.
"I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another,
Plucked bitterest fruit to give
My friend, husband, lover;--
O wanton eyes, run over;
Who but I should grieve?--
Cain hath slain his brother:
Of all who must die mother,
Miserable Eve!"
Thus she sat weeping,
Thus Eve our mother,
Where one lay sleeping
Slain by his brother.
Greatest and least
Each piteous beast
To hear her voice
Forgot his joys
And set aside his feast.
The mouse paused in his walk
And dropped his wheaten stalk;
Grave cattle wagged their heads
In rumination;
The eagle gave a cry
From his cloud station;
Larks on thyme beds
Forbore to mount or sing;
Bees drooped upon the wing;
The raven perched on high
Forgot his ration;
The conies in their rock,
A feeble nation,
Quaked sympathetical;
The mocking-bird left off to mock;
Huge camels knelt as if
In deprecation;
The kind hart's tears were falling;
Chattered the wistful stork;
Dove-voices with a dying fall
Cooed desolation
Answering grief by grief.
Only the serpent in the dust
Wriggling and crawling,
Grinned an evil grin and ******
His tongue out with its fork.
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here we write our epic
from first post
to last bugle fading
and all your readers
throw in a handful of dirt
the day you stopped singing
and turn away to their bowers
to continue in this stranger than fiction endeavour
writing out their hearts and minds one big poem stitched together
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 7:02 AM UTC
Blessed are they whose baby-souls are bright,
Whose brows are sealèd with the cross of light,
Whom God Himself has deign'd to robe in white—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they who follow through the wild
His sacred footprints, as a little child;
Who strive to keep their garments undefiled—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they who commune with the Christ,
Midst holy angels, at the Eucharist—
Who aye seek sunlight through the rain and mist—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they—the strong in faith and grace—
Who humbly fill their own appointed place;
They who with steadfast patience run the race—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they who suffer and endure—
They who through thorns and briars walk safe and sure;
Gold in the fire made beautiful and pure!—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they on whom the angels wait,
To keep them facing the celestial gate,
To help them keep their vows inviolate—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they to whom, at dead of night,—
In work, in prayer—though veiled from mortal sight,
The great King's messengers bring love and light—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they whose labours only cease
When God decrees the quiet, sweet release;
Who lie down calmly in the sleep of peace—
Blessed are they!
Whose dust is angel-guarded, where the flowers
And soft moss cover it, in this earth of ours;
Whose souls are roaming in celestial bowers—
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they—our precious ones—who trod
A pathway for us o'er the rock-strewn sod.
How are they number'd with the saints of God!
Blessed are they!
Blessed are they, elected to sit down
With Christ, in that day of supreme renown,
When His own Bride shall wear her bridal crown—
Blessed are they!
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‘LOVE’ – What mystique power it wields
In what myriad guise it wraps!
At times a sweet ache so coy to reveal
Or a sudden urge, hard to unveil
Sometimes a deep sensation
A strong surge of emotion
Permeating every atom
Pervading from top to bottom
It heightens the pulse
And makes every nerve convulse
It has left kingdoms fall asunder
And many a mighty man - surrender
Often, like dew drops falling from above
Or the warbling notes flowing out from the grove
It leaves the heart go upbeat in prosody
Changing every sensation into rhapsody
As beams of silver cast by the moon
Or the cold touch of spray in the horrid heat of noon
It soothes, embalms and thrills the heart
Filling the void and leaving no dearth
Love sublime, sure like a candle lit
Consumes itself, and never dwindles a bit
It dispels the gloom and dissipates the fright
Invigorating the soul and healing every hurt
As brilliance to stars, fragrance to flowers
Music to flute or shade to bowers
Love is to Man, freeing him from all sores
Bestowing him the strength to meet all throes
Love can neither be beguiled nor disguised
Nor be stifled or be construed
Love puts all other things into place
And hems life with a lovely lace
Love is all we seek and too scarce to find
A magic thread by which hearts are bound
Hark! It is love that makes the world spin around
And cures all the ills that surround
Oh! Love thou virtues I will defend
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 8:57 AM UTC
Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
Pass’d o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers.
And still a new succession sings and flies;
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
Towards the old and still enduring skies,
While the low violet thrives at their root.
But thou beneath the sad and heavy line
Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark;
Where not so much as dreams of light may shine,
Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.
And yet—as if some deep hate and dissent,
Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
Were still alive—thou dost great storms resent
Before they come, and know’st how near they be.
Else all at rest thou liest, and the fierce breath
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
But this thy strange resentment after death
Means only those who broke—in life—thy peace.
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Yes, bright the velvet lawn appears,
And fair the blooming bowers;
Yet blame me not—I view with tears,
This scene of light and flowers;
Strangers possess my native halls,
And tread my wonted ways;
Alas! no look, no voice recalls,
The Home of Happier Days.
The gay guitar is still in tune;
The greenhouse plants are rare;
Glad faces throng the wide saloon,
But none I love are there:
Oh ! give me friendship's cherished tone,
Give me affection's gaze;
Else my sad heart can never own
The Home of Happier Days.
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When Man, expell’d from Eden’s bowers,
A moment linger’d near the gate,
Each scene recall’d the vanish’d hours,
And bade him curse his future fate.
But, wandering on through distant climes,
He learnt to bear his load of grief;
Just gave a sigh to other times,
And found in busier scenes relief.
Thus, Lady! will it be with me,
And I must view thy charms no more;
For, while I linger near to thee,
I sigh for all I knew before.
In flight I shall be surely wise,
Escaping from temptation’s snare:
I cannot view my Paradise
Without the wish of dwelling there.
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Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had ****** aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
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Sing a song of Tajmahal
a fine nazm or a ghazal
Of this landmark for lovers
Ah, a lover's edifice
Complete with medieval bowers
It's a Mecca for tourists!
Tis sensational, tis exceptional
tis truly a touristy place.
Watch the shimmer of its magnificent marbled dome
Moonlight or sunlight, it glimmers of imperial chrome
It's ironical then
that though Indian-Arabian I am
I haven't yet been to this touristy place
It is truly as they must say, a lover's shrine
a place where hearts duly incline
They find it steamy
I find it dreamy
Oh, I've got to see for myself this touristy place.
Each of the marbled minarets
conceal such romantic secrets
for lovers to silently explore
to admire and to adore
A place human lovebirds couldn't ignore.
Ah you've got to visit this touristy place!
Two famed lovers lie in the legendary vault below
and the stream too it has a romantic flow
It's a lovers haven and paradise on earth
Even dead passions there undergo a rebirth
Ah, rekindle my love for you in this touristy place!
Extol I may this awesome imposing edifice
A greed for pure love is perhaps better than avarice
Löng live the legend of Shah jahan and Mumtaz mahal
Long live love and love like a Moghul
so forever we have this monumental grace!
Yeah take me my luv to this touristy place!
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 2:11 AM UTC
The Key To Success
A leaf has many veins connected by the midrib, similar to the Corolla in flowers connected by the sepal,
A stem has many leaves, connected through it, even the roots in this design- fibrous or tap are in their own way special,
Many stalks form a branch, many branches form a tree but all connect at the base, the trunk,
This happens in every tree, but to rebirth has to separate some chunk,
The message being conveyed by nature is unity is the key to success in this world where every person is a different type of petal,
Land Of The Ganga
In this Garth, trees are never watered by a soul, but the river Ganges herself,
The trees even after sinking inwards into the ground, continue to bloom in themselves,
Filled with myriad species of undreamt trees and the rarest of all florets in the daintiest of bowers
The most prodigious banyan tree with about three hundred aerial roots is the main
attracter
A tree that stores water is one of the hundred phenomena in the Botanical Garden in the land of the Ganga itself
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 10:29 AM UTC
Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery,
But 'tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bowers.
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.
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The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips—and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words—
Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined
Then desolately fall,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall—
Thy heart—thy heart!—I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the truth that gold can never buy—
Of the baubles that it may.
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Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given,
Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,
Travels to the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after it will ne’er thirst more;
And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay,
And go apparelled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first
To slake their thirst,
And then to taste those nectar suckets,
At the clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we
Are fill’d with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strew’d with rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.
From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no corrupted voices brawl,
No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forg’d accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the king’s attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
When the grand twelve million jury
Of our sins and sinful fury,
‘Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for alms,
Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
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On this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear
I lay, and spread your hair on either side,
And see the newborn wood flowers bashful-eyed
Look through the golden tresses here and there.
On these debatable borders of the year
Spring’s foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
And through her bowers the wind’s way still is clear.
But April’s sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
Up your warm throat to your warm lips: for this
Is even the hour of Love’s sworn suitservice,
With whom cold hearts are counted castaway.
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I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the ***** of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—
Its mother’s face with Heaven’s collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
And nearer to the river’s trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,
And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom?
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Harken My Daughters
by Solitaire Archer
Harken My Daughters I bid listen to me
And as I say these Words So Mote it be
Teach her from now till time is forgot
Teach her broom and teach her ***
Teach now no reason to hide
Teach her scents and times and tides
Teach her hues and Teach her to bide
Teach her Moons and teach her flowers
Teach her herbs and to keepsafe Our bower
Teach her Air and Water and Fire
Teach her Oak and Teach her lyre
No buildings of Stone No meter high Towers
Let her Dance in the Snow and Dance in the Showers
Hark to me my Daughters dear Teach her so she has naught to fear
Show her Signs and cards and runes
Teach to her to call down the Moon
Teach her Sight and Teach her Bane
Teach her to invoke my Name
in my Place too- call down the Power
In our Circles or in our Bowers
As I have taught now you must too
Pass it forward your line ensue
Daughter to daughter your line in Light
for this moment forward as far as Sight
Witch follows Witch for eternitys Flight
Daughter to Daugther gives Power and Might
Harken My Daughters Listen me
Child go live it
So Mote It Be
These are my words, This is my way.
Doyenne Solita Arcanna ShadoeWalker @2012
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:59 PM UTC
Come walk with me a mile...
Walk on without our burden’s weighty shoes,
warily trudging over the long rocky pathway
a lifetime in my soul.
A final edifying voyage to freedom.
The winds of change are blowing briskly
as we walk charily over the long and narrowing
rock-strewn passageway.
I shed these boots and skin, no longer fitting
my scared, blistered and callused soles.
As time slowly passes,
this craggy passage has evolved
from a two-way trail,
into one-way jagged forage…
Standing barefooted and naked on rocky ground,
dark sunken sleepless eyes scan
the rolling vista as the wind blows
dust from the halo around the sun,
blurring the delicate wispy cirrus clouds.
The sun’s radiance paints frozen ice crystal azure
into a vivid aura of prisms’ brilliant corona.
Kaleidoscope rainbows adorn the closest of solar stars.
There's something in the ethereal air
that leaves my soul unsettled,
grasping for an evocative stability
trying to understand the silenced voices
crying out within…
The pain and suffering has vanished
as if the body and soul have separated,
numbness from the ache of longing,
severed nerves, callused fears
ruptured on serrated rocky edges,
deadened useless flesh cut to the bone
by misjudged obstacles encountered enduringly.
The barefooted spirit courses on,
suffused in the solar spectrum’s dust;
yearning, longing to saunter
above and beyond the bloated feathery pillows;
cumulus clouds finally resting at peace.
Dipping heart's lesions and these benumbed toes
into a healing balm
from the bowers of bliss..
An unfinished life
an open ended dream,
reluctantly waking to take the last ,
surrendering steps beyond the threshold...
A long and winding rocky journey’s destiny
draws near
The halo around the moon
illuminates an understanding firmament;
the celestial sphere’s
pending imminent soulful rain awaits
the metamorphosis at the brink of dawn.
A shower of heaven's rain
shall mourn the loss of flesh form
as the spirit of an untamed soul lives on,
barefooted,
naked and free
like the dust in the wind
absorbed eternally...
2011 © harlon rivers
all rights reserved
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 11:16 AM UTC
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress—to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,—who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;—they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;—
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart’s desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Wcre called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,—the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!
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The April rain, the April rain,
Comes slanting down in fitful showers,
Then from the furrow shoots the grain,
And banks are fledged with nestling flowers;
And in grey shawl and woodland bowers
The cuckoo through the April rain
Calls once again."
Mathilde Blind. 4/7/2016. ☔
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 7:02 PM UTC
Mingle with the genial bowl
The Rose, the ‘flow’ret’ of the Soul,
The Rose and Grape together quaff’d,
How doubly sweet will be the draught!
With Roses crown our jovial brows,
While every cheek with Laughter glows;
While Smiles and Songs, with Wine incite,
To wing our moments with Delight.
Rose by far the fairest birth,
Which Spring and Nature cull from Earth—
Rose whose sweetest perfume given,
Breathes our thoughts from Earth to Heaven.
Rose whom the Deities above,
From Jove to **** dearly love,
When Cytherea’s blooming Boy,
Flies lightly through the dance of Joy,
With him the Graces then combine,
And rosy wreaths their locks entwine.
Then will I sing divinely crown’d,
With dusky leaves my temples bound—
Lyæus! in thy bowers of pleasure,
I’ll wake a wildly thrilling measure.
There will my gentle Girl and I,
Along the mazes sportive fly,
Will bend before thy potent throne—
Rose, Wine, and Beauty, all my own.
2.6k
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music’s most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age’s icy caves,
And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves,
And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
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I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
’Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.
2.4k
Fountains of flowers, growing so fast.
Such a shame that none of them last.
Summer blossoms soon will wane,
They’ll be back next year again.
Bees await the autumn flowers,
Checking out the wooded bowers.
Twittering blackbirds guard their land:
Will their fights get out of hand?
Swallows swoop with arcing wings,
Ever returning for endless Springs.
It’s early July, just past midsummer,
Every green leaf is a newcomer.
Earlier dawn and longer light,
Durable daylight and shorter night.
British weather will still prevail:
Sunny spells and storms with hail.
Winter always is a ******
I thank Goodness we have our Summer.
Paul Butters
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 5:59 AM UTC
No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of æther;
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that’s come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter’s wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white as their bark, so white this lady’s hours.
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