Famous Nature Poems - Page 4

Last night we saw the sunlight fall
Beyond the gate and old stone wall,
And brighten on the stocks of wheat,
Ripe after days of brooding heat;
And in the lane we lingered long,
Then homeward turned, a sleepy throng.

Yet glad to hail the joyful day,
We rose while still the dawn was grey,
And roused the house, a merry band,
The happiest children in the land;
And all were dressed, and breakfast done,
Before the day had well begun.

The sun looked out, and quickly dried
The gleaming dew, and glorified
The broad array of clustered sheaves,
And pierced the lane's green roof of leaves,
And shone in strength, as one and all
Trooped to the gate and moss-grown wall.

And mother came, with Margery
Our eldest sister, pleased to see
The busy harvesters and hear
Our cries of triumph shrill and clear,
As heavy wagons loaded high
With rustling sheaves came rumbling by.

Late in the golden afternoon,
Yet long before the rising moon,
The last great wagon-load was piled,
And, lovely still, the sunlight smiled
Above the toilers resting there,
And those broad acres reaped and bare.

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.

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.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

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.

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.

Their faint "honk-honk" announces them,
    The geese when they come flying north;
Above the far horizon's hem
    From out the south they issue forth.

They weave their figures in the sky.
    They write their name upon its dome.
And, o'er and o'er, we hear them cry
    Their cry of gladness and of home.

Now lakes shall loose their icy hold
    Upon the banks, and crocus bloom;
The sun shall warm the river's cold
    And pierce the Winter's armored gloom;

The vines upon the oaken tree
    Shall shake their wavy tresses forth,
The grass shall wake, the rill go free—
    For, see! The geese are flying north!

A world of snow, and winter yet,
    The weather-man decrees.
He listens to the bragging wind,
    I hearken roots of trees.
It thawed of late, and roots lay out
    Along the way I take;
I heard them deeply sigh, as does
    A dreamer soon to wake.
And lo—upon my windowsill
Opens a yellow daffodil.

Gold-armored herald of the spring,
    Come privately to tell
That snow is but the calyx warm,
    The bud begins to swell.
So weather-man, go prophesy,
    And credulous, go hear—
My herald gives your gloom the lie,
    I know that Spring is near!
For lo—upon my windowsill
Opens a yellow daffodil.

It is October, and the glory of the year
Is in the skies and on the woods extended far and near;
It glows in burnish'd clouds, it flushes all the air;
It lies in hollow vales, in uplands brown and bare.

The tufted groves have lost their bright midsummer green,
And now a softer russet-flush creeps o'er the woodland scene;
O'er distant purple hills there floats a gauzy veil,
A silver vapor hovers o'er the river in the vale.

The orchard trees all glisten with globes of yellow gold,
That bend the bough and strew the earth with opulence untold;
The ripen'd corn-fields shake their pennons thin and white,
And to a feast, the chestnuts, the village school invite.

The gossamer spider-web is strung from tree to tree,
And up the air the thistle-down floats like a ship at sea;
The asters and the dahlias like flames in gardens glow,
And by the roadside wild flowers display a royal show.

Dim seen, the cautious angler glides on from brook to brook,
Now by the open meadow, now in some bushy nook.
And now across the mill-pond, with water-plants o'ergrown,
I see his floating boat, and where his lines are thrown.

And o'er the salty marsh the gun's report I hear,
And see the snipe and curlews stop in their swift career;
While o'er the open bays I see the wild-ducks wheel,
The red-neck and the widgeon, the whistler and the teal.

O glorious days of autumn! with all your pomp of skies;
Tour harvests and your fruits, your flowers of matchless dyes
How dear to manly sportsman your ripe, imperial time;
Your sports by "stream and forest," in Nature's royal prime.

I sometimes think that thus was born the world—
Not like a blinding sun from chaos hurled
To blaze and burn for ages—that it woke
As wakes the forest, wakes the verdant oak,
Breathing soft breezes, wreathed in lacy mist
Through which there burst the gleam of amethyst.

The forest morn! Across the night profound
Steals now the music of harmonious sound—
The bird's faint twitter, sleepy, sleepy still,
The bird's first carol, sweet, all sweet and shrill;
And down through branches, poured in generous streams,
Come tints of dawn, the colors of our dreams.