The Melody of Earth: An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets
General
The Melody of Earth: An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets
English poetry; Gardens -- Poetry; Nature in literature
All through the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
Of the satyr carved in stone.
The fountain sang and sang
But the satyr never stirred--
Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.
The fountain sang and sang
While on the marble rim
The milk-white peacocks slept,
And their dreams were strange and dim.
Bright dew was on the grass,
And on the ilex, dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
Were all a-glisten, too.
The fountain sang and sang
The things one cannot tell;
The dreaming peacocks stirred
And the gleaming dew-drops fell.
SARA TEASDALE
THE CHAMPA FLOWER
Supposing I became a champa flower, just for fun, and grew on a branch
high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon
the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?
You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to myself and
keep quite quiet.
I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work.
When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders, you walked
through the shadow of the champa tree to the little court where you say
your prayers, you would notice the scent of the flower, but not know
that it came from me.
When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading _Ramayana_, and
the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap, I should fling my
wee little shadow on to the page of your book, just where you were
reading.
But would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your little child?
When in the evening you went to the cow-shed with the lighted lamp in
your hand, I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and be your own
baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story.
"Where have you been, you naughty child?"
"I won't tell you, mother." That's what you and I would say then.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
IN AN EGYPTIAN GARDEN
Can it be winter otherwhere?
Forsooth, it seems not so!
The moonlight on the garden square
Must be the only snow,
For all about me, fragrant fair,
The blooms of summer blow.
Wine-lipped and beautiful and bland,
The rose displays its dower;
The heavy-scented citron and
The stainless lily-tower;
And whiter than a houri's hand,
El Ful, the Arab flower.
In purple silhouette a palm
Lifts from a vine-wreathed plinth
Against a sky whose cloudless calm
Is hued like hyacinth;
And echoes with a bulbul's psalm
The jasmine labyrinth.
In life's tumultuous ocean swell
Here is a charmèd isle;
I hear a late muezzin tell
His holy tale the while,
And like the faint notes of a bell
The boat-songs of old Nile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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