* * *
I think I go into abstraction
when the form is plain
when the flower is to flower
and wood makes wood
I am joined to a walk
or aimlessly
tuned to the sting
of a saw's thrust
Poems on the topic: wood
Poems on the topic “wood” on Poets.by.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
The Wood-Pile
Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day,
I paused and said, ‘I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther--and we shall see.’
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather--
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
All That's Past
Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.
Lines from "The Soul's Destroyer"
We went together side by side to school,
Together had our holidays in fields
Made golden by June's buttercups ; in woods,
Where under ferns fresh pulled I buried her,
And called her forth like Lazarus from the grave;
She'd laughing come, to shake her curls until
Methought to hear full half a hundred bells.
A grown-up world took playful notice soon.
Made me feel shame that grew a greater love;
She was more chary of her laughter then,
And more subdued her voice, as soft and sweet
As Autumn's, blowing through his golden reeds.
In her sweet sympathies she was a woman
When scarcely she was more than child in years ;
And yet one angry moment parted us.
And days of longing never joined us more.
From the North
The northern woods are delicately sweet,
The lake is folded softly by the shore,
But I am restless for the subway's roar,
The thunder and the hurrying of feet.
I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat
Against the image of the tower that bore
Me high aloft, as if thru heaven's door
I watched the world from God's unshaken seat.
I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
The tunnel's strong hot breath of powdered steel;
But at the ferries I should leave the tense
Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
One among many who are thrilled to feel
The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.
Places
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
Tanka 5
Though love has grown cold
The woods are bright with flowers,
Why not as of old
Go to the wildwood bowers
And dream of — bygone hours!
Three Island Songs 1
After the wind in the wood,
Peace, and the night.
After the bond and the brood,
Flight.
After the height and the hush
Where the wild hawk swings,
Heart of the earth-loving thrush
Shaken with wings.
After the bloom and the leaf
Rain on the nest.
After the splendour and grief,
Rest.
After the hills and the far
Glories and gleams,
Cloud, and the dawn of a star,
And dreams.
The Messenger
Far out from the whirlpool cities
They call and they call to me
Where the journey ends —
My infinite Friends
The Wind and the Sea.
Tonight the Wind in the inland woods,
Where my sheltered house is set,
Carries the rush of the sea waves past
Till my cheeks feel cold and wet.
And I smile and shudder. . . .
"What wouldst thou of me
O Wind and Sea?"
Far out from the whirlpool cities
They call and they call to me
Where the Journey ends —
My infinite Friends
The Witch
They--the good people--heard her song
From out of the wood that grows thick in the valley.
She had climbed to the hill-top that rises, blue,
Out of the wood as one comes through.
Grass on the hill-top waving long,
And a smooth gray stone where she kept her tally
Of the years and the days in the wild singing wood.
She lived her life as a virgin should
Till the people heard her song.
They climbed the hill and they frowned and said
“We liked your songs that we heard in the valley.
We don’t like that one you are singing to-day!
It’s mad and it’s bad and it’s much too gay!
But we’ve brought you some meat and bread.”
Then they saw on the stone her tally,
And they shook their heads ... “Look here! Look here!
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