Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Internally Displaced Persons (Idps)

They leave their homes Unwillingly forced And follow their fate Through fields and trails Massifs and woods With all their goods Love and hate Mores and tales All in bales Carrying their own

'It Might Have Been'

We will be what we could be. Do not say, 'It might have been, had not this, or that, or this.' No fate can keep us from the chosen way; He only might who is. We will do what we could do. Do not dream Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve. I hold, all men are greatly what they seem; He does, who could achieve.

The Loss Of Love

All through an empty place I go, And find her not in any room; The candles and the lamps I light Go down before a wind of gloom. Thick-spraddled lies the dust about, A fit, sad place to write her name Or draw her face the way she looked That legendary night she came. The old house crumbles bit by bit;

Heaven-Haven

I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail, And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.

Andy's Gone With Cattle

Our Andy's gone to battle now 'Gainst Drought, the red marauder; Our Andy's gone with cattle now Across the Queensland border. He's left us in dejection now; Our hearts with him are roving. It's dull on this selection now, Since Andy went a-droving.

A Process In The Weather Of The Heart

A process in the weather of the heart Turns damp to dry; the golden shot Storms in the freezing tomb. A weather in the quarter of the veins Turns night to day; blood in their suns Lights up the living worm. A process in the eye forwarns The bones of blindness; and the womb Drives in a death as life leaks out.

An April Day

When the warm sun, that brings Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain. I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms.

The Moon's Whisper

The moon whispered to the sea, 'Tell me your deepest secrets.' And the sea, with its waves dancing, Revealed tales of lost ships, Of sailors' dreams and mermaids' songs. The moon listened, its silver glow Caressing the water's surface. It heard stories of love and longing, Of storms that raged and calms that soothed,

A Summer Afternoon

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze, With labored respiration, moves the wheat From distant reaches, till the golden seas Break in crisp whispers at my feet. My book, neglected of an idle mind, Hides for a moment from the eyes of men; Or lightly opened by a critic wind, Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Human Life’s Mystery

We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born… For earnest or for jest? The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within, We guess diviner things beyond,

White Clouds

White clouds Morphing wonderfully Watch those bears Changing into Rows of elephants Shaping like A frail old man standing Rearranging into children Playing with balloons.

I Know The Music

All sounds have been as music to my listening: Pacific lamentations of slow bells, The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening, Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells: Bugles that sadden all the evening air, And country bells clamouring their last appeals Before [the] music of the evening prayer; Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels.

A Goodnight

Go to sleep- though of course you will not- to tideless waves thundering slantwise against strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind, scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls' cries in a wind-gust broken by the wind; calculating wings set above the field of waves breaking. Go to sleep to the lunge between foam-crests, refuse churned in the recoil. Food! Food!

Tough Tree

The dry leaves are shaken off by the wind The wind softly whispered in the tired of the dizzy climate The land regenerates willingly on the animals that inhabit it The leaves are ready and willing to be eaten by insects, worms and slugs Trees that soar high reaching the sky have been tested by various storms as if they are still strong even though they are old but still protect every habitat below them His organs seemed willing to die and regenerate because that was the sacrifice of his life

Old Ironsides

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar; -- The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe,

To Winter

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.' He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd, sheathèd In ribbèd steel; I dare not lift mine eyes, For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world. Lo! now the direful monster, whose 1000 skin clings

Mount Kearsarge Shines

Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river budges but remains still. Tonight we carry armloads of logs from woodshed to Glenwood and build up the fire that keeps the coldest night outside our windows. Sit by the woodstove, Camilla, while I bring glasses of white,

You Will Hear Thunder

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. That day in Moscow, it will all come true, when, for the last time, I take my leave, And hasten to the heights that I have longed for, Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

Hymn

At morn- at noon- at twilight dim- Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and woe- in good and ill- Mother of God, be with me still! When the hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast Darkly my Present and my Past,