Poetry Anthology

The word 'natural' often makes people think of life on Earth, yet it can also relate to the emotions we all face, the social interactions that come before us, and even the love we share for one another.

John Clare- When Nature’s Beauty Shown Complete

When nature's beauty shone complete.
With summer's lovely weather,
And even, shadowing day's retreat,
Brought swains and maids together;
Then I did meet a charming face,
But who--I'll be discreet:
Though lords themselves without disgrace
Might love whom I did meet.
"Good evening, lovely lass," said I,
To make her silence break;
The instant evening's blushing sky
Was rival'd in her cheek;
Her eyes were turn'd upon the ground,
She made me no reply,
But downward looks my bosom found:
"You've won me," whisper'd I.
And I did try all love could do,
And she try'd all to fly,
Now lingering slow to let me go,
Then hurrying to pass by:
"My love," said I, "you've me mistook,
No harm from me you'll meet;"
She only answer'd with a look,
But it was 'witching sweet.

I own'd my love, and prais'd her eyes,
Whose power she little knew;
And doubtless then she fancied lies,
What since she's proved true;
Confusion mingling fear and shame,
Between the "Yes" and "No,"
O when I mention'd love's soft name
How sweet her cheeks did glow!

I told her all the open truth,
'Bout being a labouring swain,
With not one groat to boast, forsooth,
But what hard work did gain:
And begg'd excuse in such-like clothes
Within her way to fall;
Wenches are ta'en with flashy beaus--
But she excus'd it all.

As near the humble cot we came,
Her fears did meet alarm
Lest friends imprudent ways should blame,
And think I meant her harm:
So there I prest her to my heart,
And there a kiss was ta'en,
And there I vow'd, ere we did part,
To meet her soon again.

Robert Frost- 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

As ice-storms do.  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-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows--

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father’s trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer.  He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground.  He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I’d like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return.  Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Millard Lowe- Tears of Joy

Tears of Joy God cried today;

His tears fertilized Mother Earth’s womb; 

The fragrance of nature saturated the air.

 Tomorrow I will cry upon your grave 

Laughing tears Falling from pregnant memories:

 Pregnant memories 

Washing away grief’s gloom 

Watering love And the happiness of peace we shared.

Ballad of nature Poem- Juwon Daniel

Sitting in a gentle tree,

watching the seasons go by.
It's all I need,
yet a tear stings my eye.

I stare from my haven,
looking out from my perch.
Depressing at what we can't be,
gazing at what we wish we were.

I see fires rage,
across a hilly plain.
I see trees become a page,
and guns causing pain.

So sad, much pain,
our will to care shows no avail.
Like gentle rain,
becoming fiesty hail.

Nature is filled with serenity,
yet is filled with untamed wild.
Nature is filled with love,
and yet is filled with hate.

Walt Whitman- A Child’s Amaze

SILENT and amazed,  even when a little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,
As contending against some being or influence.

Nikki Giovanni-Winter Poem

Once a snowflake fell

on my brow and I loved

it so much and I kissed

it and it was happy and called its cousins

and brothers and a web

of snow engulfed me then

I reached to love them all

and I squeezed them and they became

a spring rain and I stood perfectly

still and was a flower

Mantis by Louis Zukofsky

Mantis! praying mantis! since your wings’ leaves 
And your terrified eyes, pins, bright, black and poor 
Beg-”look, take it up” (thoughts’ torsion) ! “save it! ” 
I who can’t bear to look, cannot touch, -You- 
You can-but no one sees you steadying lost 
In the cars’ drafts on the lit subway stone. 

Praying mantis, what wind-up brought you, stone 
On which you sometimes prop, prey among leaves 
(Is it love’s food your raised stomach prays?) , lost 
Here, stone holds only seats on which the poor 
Ride, who rising from the news may trample you - 
The shop’s crowds a jam with no flies in it. 

Even the newsboy who now sees knows it 
No use, papers make money, makes stone, stone, 
Banks, “it is harmless, ” he says moving on-You? 
Where will he put you? There are no safe leaves 
To put you back in here, here’s news! too poor 
Like all the separate poor to save the lost. 

Don’t light on my chest, mantis! do-you’re lost, 
Let the poor laugh at my fright, then see it: 
My shame and theirs, you whom old Europe’s poor 
Call spectre, strawberry, by turns; a stone- 
You point-they say-you lead lost children-leaves 
Close in the paths men leave, saved, safe with you. 

Killed by thorns (once men) , who now will save you 
Mantis? what male love bring a fly, be lost 
Within your mouth, prophetess, harmless to leaves 
And hands, faked flower, -the myth: is dead, bones, it 
Was assembled, apes wing in wind: On stone 
Mantis, you will die, touch, beg, of the poor. 

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor 
As your love would even without head to you, 
Graze like machined wheels, green from off this stone 
And preying on each terrified chest, lost 
Say, I am old as the globe, the moon, it 
Is my old shoe, yours, be free as the leaves. 

Fly, mantis, on the poor, arise like leaves 
The armies of the poor, strength: stone on stone 
And build the new world in your eyes, Save it!

William Shakespeare-Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; 
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, 
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, 
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; 
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sara Kendrick-Away

    

 Softly she enters the path into wood Dressed in summer's white linen,

 black hat unband Toddlers follow, these of her motherhood In bloom today trees

..dogwoods, cottonwood She carries her butterfly net in hand Softly she enters the

 path into wood Tiny little girls become sisterhood Drawn to nature are they, bugs,

 blooms, and Toddlers follow, these of her motherhood She spies butterflies in the

 thick hardwood Escape today, play her spirit's demand Softly she enters the path

into wood Away from the creekside where sometimes flood Away into the scary

woods not planned Toddlers follow, these of her motherhood Away she goes into

 the deep away Stray away from everyday dismay Softly she enters the path into

wood Toddlers follow, these of her motherhood.

Sandra Haight- Come Walk With Me

 Come, walk through the beautiful forest with me, 

Enraptured by musical sounds of the wild, 

Where life dwells unhindered and gracefully free.

 For children of nature we happen to be,

 Made open and free as an innocent child… 

Come, walk through the beautiful forest with me,

 Enthralled with the wonder of earth’s majesty,

 Abandoned with nature where God’s love has smiled,

 Where life dwells unhindered and gracefully free, 

Our worldly, dark troubles will magically flee, 

Erasing the sorrowful memories filed… Come,

 walk through the beautiful forest with me. 

Tranquility flows everywhere peacefully 

With fragrance of nature, sweet-scented and mild,

 Where life dwells unhindered and gracefully free.

 Absorbing the essence of Earth's modesty, 

With stillness and beauty of nature compiled,

 Come, walk through the beautiful forest with me…

 Where life dwells unhindered and gracefully free. 

Henry David Thoreau- Pray to What Earth

 Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,
Which asks no duties and no conscience?
The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path
In some far summer stratum of the sky,
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs

The snow dust still emits a silver light.
Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,
The titmice now pursue their downy dreams,
As often in the sweltering summer nights
The bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup,
When evening overtakes him with his load.
By the brooksides, in the still, genial night,
The more adventurous wanderer may hear
The crystals shoot and form, and winter slow
Increase his rule by gentlest summer means

An Essay on Man: Epistle I

BY ALEXANDER POPE