Angela Weld Grimke
Tell me is there anything lovelier,
Anything more quieting
Than the green of little blades of grass
And the green of little leaves?
Is not each leaf a cool green hand,
Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger,
Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may hide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light. ~ William C. Bryant
Robert Frost
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
Patrick Kavanagh
Beauty was that
Far vanished flame,
Call it a star
Wanting better name.
And gaze and gaze
Vaguely until
Nothing is left
Save a grey ghost-hill.
Here wait I
On the world’s rim
Stretching out hands
To Seraphim.
Robert Crawford
Music, with the tears in it,
Through my soul is ringing,
Moods like bodies flame and flit
Through the spirit’s singing;
Dream-birds half-articulate,
Which no charms can capture,
Come by twos and nest and mate
In a moment’s rapture.
Now I seem to be upborne
On a starry pinion
Where the poet’s hope forlorn
Has divine dominion —
Where he sees the clouds of earth
Gather light and cluster,
As babes on the dawn of Birth
Watch the visions muster!
All that thought and feeling share
In a soul’s possession
To my singing seems to bear
A divine confession;
As within my dreaming brain
Lips of inspiration
Breathe the beauty gone again
On a new creation.
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. ~ Albert Einstein
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close behind me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lonely worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air;
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
(_Prologue to “The Two Poets of Croisic.”_)
Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!
Sky–what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!
World–how it walled about
Life with disgrace,
Till God’s own smile came out:
That was thy face!
Flower among flowers,
soft bud swooning,
that the wind moves
to a gentle crooning.
Wind of heaven,
wind of love,
you who gladden
all you espy;
you who smile
and will not sigh,
candour and fragrance
from above;
you who perhaps
came down to earth
to bring the lonely
solace and mirth,
and to be a joy
for the heart to capture.
They say that into
your dawn you bear
the immaculate soul
a prisoner
— bound with the ties of
passion and rapture?
They say you spread
good everywhere
like the Spring
which fills the air
with joy and flowers
in Apriltime.
They say you brighten
the soul that mourns
when dark clouds gather,
and that without thorns
blossom the roses
in your clime.
If then, like a fairy,
you enhance
the joy of those
on whom you glance
with the magic charm
God gave to you;
oh, spare me an hour
of your cheer,
a single day
of your career,
that the breast may savor
the bliss it knew.
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
