Famous Nature Poems - Page 2

Sitting to-day in the sunshine
    That touched me with fingers of love,
I thought of the manifold blessings
    God scatters on earth, from above;
And they seemed, as I numbered them over,
    Far more than we merit, or need,
And all that we lack is the angels
    To make earth a heaven indeed.

The winter brings long, pleasant evenings,
    The spring brings a promise of flowers
That summer breathes into fruition;
    And autumn brings glad, golden hours.
The woodlands re-echo with music,
    The moonbeams ensilver the sea;
There is sunlight and beauty about us,
    And the world is as fair as can be.

But mortals are always complaining!
    Each one thinks his own a sad lot,
And forgetting the good things about him,
    Goes mourning for those he has not.
Instead of the star-spangled heavens,
    We look on the dust at our feet;
We drain out the cup that is bitter,
    Forgetting the one that is sweet.

We mourn o'er the thorn in the flower,
    Forgetting its odor and bloom;
We pass by a garden of blossoms,
    To weep o'er the dust of the tomb.
There are blessings unnumbered about us--
    Like the leaves of the forest they grow;
And the fault is our own--not the Giver's--
    That we have not Eden below.

Winter is the king of showmen,
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes.
Smooth and clean and frosty white,
The world looks good enough to bite.
That's the season to be young,
Catching snowflakes on your tongue!
Snow is snowy when it's snowing.
I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going.

How I love to hear the rustle of the leaves upon the trees
When the foliage of summer is a moving in the breeze
When the oak and beech and maple are a tuning up the air
As they hear the quaking aspen sending signals everywhere.

The deciduous forest people are a music making band
With their symphonies so simple that a child can understand
For there's meaning in their rhythm and a pleasure 'mong the trees
When the wind is blowing through them and a stirring all the leaves.

There's an overture in whispers which is soothing to the ear
Then a chorus full of comfort just a chasing out your fear
As the louder it is sounding and the louder yet again
Till at last are joys abounding when it falls in sweet refrain.

Yes, it brings you heaps of solace when the wind is blowing soft
In a lullaby of nature which will bear you way aloft
Till you leave this world of trouble with its fretting and its care
As you listen to the rustle of the leaves a playing there.

O, I love to stop and hearken to the music of the trees
As the wind is soughing through them or a playing with the leaves
There's a harmony that holds you in the noises of the wood
Where I never tire of listening for it does a fellow good.

Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

Sweet melody amidst the moving spheres
Breaks forth, a solemn and entrancing sound,
A harmony whereof the earth's green hills
Give but the faintest echo; yet is there
A music everywhere, and concert sweet!
All birds which sing amidst the forest deep
Till the flowers listen with unfolded bells;
All winds that murmur over summer grass,
Or curl the waves upon the pebbly shore;
Chiefly all earnest human voices rais'd
In charity and for the cause of truth,
Mingle together in one sacred chord,
And float, a grateful incense, up to God.

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.

Out of the bosom of the Air,
    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
        Silent, and soft, and slow
        Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
        The troubled sky reveals
        The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
        Now whispered and revealed
        To wood and field.

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!

When a feller feels a longing
    For the medder in his breast.
When the robins north are thronging,
    Where they haste to build their nest.
When the frogs peep in the puddle
    Where I love to hear them sing,
Then my brain is in a muddle,
    For I know it's really spring.

When the double windows smother
    Us until we want more air;
When a protest comes and mother
    Can't endure them longer there;
When we ope the cellar shutters,
    Kitchen doors are on the swing,
Clean the cisterns, fix the gutters―
    Then I know its truly spring.

When the wild ducks and geese are going
    Northward, "dragging" as they fly;
When the streams are overflowing,
    And a rainbow gilds the sky;
When the plowman turns the stubble
    Where the bluebirds sweetly sing,
When comes carpet-beating trouble,
    Then I'm confident it's spring.

When the jack-torch men are spearing
    Silver suckers in the brook,
And the angleworms appearing.
    Seem quite anxious for my hook;
When the mellow sunlights beckon
    Till the mill wheel starts to sing,
Then's the time the fish, I reckon,
    'Spect to see me―Come! It's spring!

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Full of joy is early Summer,
    Growth and warmth and golden light;
Every day is crowned with beauty,
    Full of loveliness the night.
Dazzling sunshine brings the roses,
    Fills the whole bright world with bloom;
Day and night rejoice together,
    Banished now are doubt and gloom.

Skies serene and loving woo us
    To the woods and fields to-day;
Who would linger long when Nature
    Calls him to her feast away?
Earth a veritable Eden
    In the glowing sunlight gleams,
Life a grand and noble epic,
    Viewed from such a standpoint seems.

Gladness reigns the wide world over,
    Early Summer's golden light
Fills each bosom with thanksgiving
    For the season's blessings bright.
Happy harvest days are coming,
    Full of joy, throughout the land;
Where the fields of grain are waving,
    Full-eared wheat in shocks shall stand.

Perfect days that pass too quickly,
    One by one they come and go,
Each in turn reveals rare blessing,
    Beauty passing all below.
Balmy air and bright green landscape,
    Glowing eve and dewy dawn;
Sunlight's gold on field and forest—
    We shall grieve when these are gone.

Joyous time to him that loveth
    Growth and warmth and golden light;
Day is full of blessed beauty,
    Full of peace the dewy night.
Early Summer! time of roses,
    All the earth is filled with bloom;
Every heart in thee rejoices,
    Banished now are doubt and gloom.

God, when you thought of a pine tree,
How did you think of a star?
How did you dream of the Milky Way
To guide us from afar.
How did you think of a clean brown pool
Where flecks of shadows are?

God, when you thought of a cobweb,
How did you think of dew?
How did you know a spider's house
Had shingles bright and new?
How did you know the human folk
Would love them like they do?

God, when you patterned a bird song,
Flung on a silver string,
How did you know the ecstasy
That crystal call would bring?
How did you think of a bubbling throat
And a darling speckled wing?

God, when you chiseled a raindrop,
How did you think of a stem,
Bearing a lovely satin leaf
To hold the tiny gem?
How did you know a million drops
Would deck the morning's hem?

Why did you mate the moonlit night
With the honeysuckle vines?
How did you know Madeira bloom
Distilled ecstatic wines?
How did you weave the velvet disk
Where tangled perfumes are?
God, when you thought of a pine tree,
How did you think of a star?

I came to the mountains for beauty
And I find here the toiling folk,
On sparse little farms in the valleys,
Wearing their days like a yoke.

White clouds fill the valleys at morning,
They are round as great billows at sea,
And roll themselves up to the hill-tops
Still round as great billows can be.

The mists fill the valleys at evening,
They are blue as the smoke in the fall,
And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarf
That touches the hills not at all.

These lone folk have looked on them daily,
Yet I see in their faces no light.
Oh, how can I show them the mountains
That are round them by day and by night?

The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.

The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.

The winter wood is like a strong old man,
Grizzled, rugged, and gray,
With long white locks tattered by many storms.
He lifts gnarled arms defiant of the blasts,
And rears his old head proudly
Under the menace of the winter sky.

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."

HERE in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone and shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

Dead that shall quicken at the voice of spring,
Sleepers to wake beneath June’s tempest kiss;
Though birds pass over, unremembering,
And no bee find here roses that were his.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That shall drink deeply at a century’s streams;
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can stir a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

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.