Golden Bells

Hear the mellow weddings bells, Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the future! How it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells –

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Eve Merriam

Autumn Leaves

Down

down

down

Red

yellow

brown

Autumn leaves tumble down,

Autumn leaves crumble down,

Autumn leaves bumble down,

Flaking and shaking,

Tumbledown leaves.

Rosemary Garland

Summer-time

Summer is the play-by-the-stream time,

Roll-in-the-meadow-and-dream time,

Lie-on-your-back-and-chew-grass time,

Watch-butterflies-as-they-pass time,

Try-and-pick-daisies-with-toes time,

Playing-where-nobody-knows time.

Thomas Hood

November

No sun – no moon!

No morn – no noon –

No dawn – no dusk – no proper time a day –

No sky- no earthly view –

No distance looking blue –

No road – no street – no “t’other side the way” –

No end to any Row –

No indications where the Crescents go –

No top to any steeple –

No recognition of familiar people!

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member –

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees –

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds –

No – vember – !

W.H. Auden

This Lunar Beauty But this was never

A ghost’s endeavor

Nor finished this

Was ghost at ease

And till it pass

Love shall not here

Nor sorrow take his endless look.

Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I've heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of Me.

Irene Ritherford Mcleod

I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;

I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;

I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;

I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,

A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,

Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,

But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,

Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.

O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,

Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger for the quest!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Solitude

LAUGH, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,

But has trouble enough of it's own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air.

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go.

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all.

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a long and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.