Nature and Elements

The long sobs Of the violins Of autumn Pierce my heart With monotonous languor. 1

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.

What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers, Didst fettle for the great gray drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behavior Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, willful-wavier Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behavior Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, willful-wavier Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?

Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle!

I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy!

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring— When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring— When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush.

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go,

And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go,

Ah, no; the years, the years; Down their chiseled names the raindrop plows.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,

And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue, In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume.

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was specter-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was specter-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness.

On a tree by a river a little tomtit Sang “Willow, titwillow, titwillow!” And I said to him, “Dicky-bird, why do you sit Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow!’ “Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?” I cried, “Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?” With a shake of his poor little head he replied, “Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!”