Blog All About It: Tree Poetry

This month the prompt is "TREES".

I wasn't sure what to really do this month. Lots of ideas, but nothing I really wanted to do. So, I'll just share some poetry with trees mentioned or as the theme. There will be some pics too! Sorry to be boring this month! But I'm feeling poetry ;)

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London]

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, 

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost 

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been 

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age 

Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, 

Friends, whom I never more may meet again, 

On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, 

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, 

To that still roaring dell, of which I told; 

The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, 

And only speckled by the mid-day sun; 

Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock 

Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash, 

Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves 

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, 

Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends 

Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, 

That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) 

Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge 

Of the blue clay-stone. 

Now, my friends emerge 

Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again 

The many-steepled tract magnificent 

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, 

With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up 

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles 

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on 

In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, 

My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined 

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year, 

In the great City pent, winning thy way 

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain 

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink 

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! 

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, 

Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! 

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! 

And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend 

Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, 

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round 

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem 

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues 

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes 

Spirits perceive his presence. 

A delight 

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad 

As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, 

This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd 

Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze 

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd 

Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see 

The shadow of the leaf and stem above 

Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree 

Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay 

Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps 

Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass 

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue 

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat 

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, 

Yet still the solitary humble-bee 

Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know 

That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; 

No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, 

No waste so vacant, but may well employ 

Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart 

Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes 

'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good, 

That we may lift the soul, and contemplate 

With lively joy the joys we cannot share. 

My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook 

Beat its straight path along the dusky air 

Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing 

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) 

Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, 

While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still, 

Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm 

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom 

No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. 

Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see 

A poem lovely as a tree. 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in Summer wear 

A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 

Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree.

An Apple Gathering

by: Christina Rossetti

 I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree

    And wore them all that evening in my hair:

Then in due season when I went to see

        I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

    As I had come I went the selfsame track:

My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass

        So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

    Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;

Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,

        Their mother’s home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

    A stronger hand than hers helped it along;

A voice talked with her through the shadows cool

        More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

    Than apples with their green leaves piled above?

I counted rosiest apples on the earth

        Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk

    Laughing and listening in this very lane:

To think that by this way we used to walk

        We shall not walk again!

I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos

    And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,

And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews

        Fell fast I loitered still.