In July

His beauty bore no token,
    No sign our gladness shook;
With tender strength unbroken
    The hand of Life he took:
But the summer flowers were falling,
    Falling and fading away,
And mother birds were calling,
        Crying and calling
    For their loves that would not stay.

He knew not Autumn's chillness,
    Nor Winter's wind nor Spring's.
He lived with Summer's stillness
    And sun and sunlit things:
But when the dusk was falling
    He went the shadowy way,
And one more heart is calling,
        Crying and calling
    For the love that would not stay.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

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Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Love and Grief.

    One day, when Love and Summer both were young,
        Love in a garden found my lady weeping;
    Whereat, when he to kiss her would have sprung,
        I stayed his childish leaping.

    "Forbear," said I, "she is not thine to-day;
        Subdue thyself in silence to await her;
    If thou dare call her from Death's side away
        Thou art no Love, but traitor.

    Yet did he run, and she his kiss received,
        "She is twice mine," he cried, "since she is troubled;
    I knew but half, and now I see her grieved
        My part in her is doubled."

Henry John Newbolt

Ave, Soror

    I left behind the ways of care,
        The crowded hurrying hours,
    I breathed again the woodland air,
        I plucked the woodland flowers:

    Bluebells as yet but half awake,
        Primroses pale and cool,
    Anemones like stars that shake
        In a green twilight pool--

    On these still lay the enchanted shade,
        The magic April sun;
    With my own child a child I strayed
        And thought the years were one.

    As through the copse she went and came
        My senses lost their truth;
    I called her by the dear dead name
        That sweetened all my youth.

Henry John Newbolt

Autumn Leaves.

The Spring's bright tints no more are seen,
And Summer's ample robe of green
Is russet-gold and brown;
When flowers fall to every breeze
And, shed reluctant from the trees,
The leaves drop down.

A sadness steals about the heart,
--And is it thus from youth we part,
And life's redundant prime?
Must friends like flowers fade away,
And life like Nature know decay,
And bow to time?

And yet such sadness meets rebuke,
From every copse in every nook
Where Autumn's colours glow;
How bright the sky! How full the sheaves!
What mellow glories gild the leaves
Before they go.

Then let us sing the jocund praise,
In this bright air, of these bright days,
When years our friendships crown;
The love that's loveliest when 'tis old--

Juliana Horatia Ewing

When I Remember

When I remember that the day will come
    For this our love to quit his land of birth,
    And bid farewell to all the ways of earth
With lips that must for evermore be dumb,

Then creep I silent from the stirring hum,
    And shut away the music and the mirth,
    And reckon up what may be left of worth
When hearts are cold and love's own body numb.

Something there must be that I know not here,
Or know too dimly through the symbol dear;
    Some touch, some beauty, only guessed by this---
If He that made us loves, it shall replace,
Beloved, even the vision of thy face
    And deep communion of thine inmost kiss.

Henry John Newbolt

In Autumn

The leaves are many under my feet,
    And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
    A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.

The low winds moan for dead sweet years;
    The birds sing all for pain,
Of a common thing, to weary ears,--
    Only a summer's fate of rain,
And a woman's fate of tears.

I walk to love and life alone
    Over these mournful places,
Across the summer overthrown,
    The dead joys of these silent faces,
To claim my own.

I know his heart has beat to bright
    Sweet loves gone by.
I know the leaves that die to-night
    Once budded to the sky,
And I shall die from his delight.

O leaves, so quietly ending now,
    You have heard cuckoos sing.
And I ...

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

To a River in the South

    Call me no more, O gentle stream,
    To wander through thy sunny dream,
    No more to lean at twilight cool
    Above thy weir and glimmering pool.

    Surely I know thy hoary dawns,
    The silver crisp on all thy lawns,
    The softly swirling undersong
    That rocks thy reeds the winter long.

    Surely I know the joys that ring
    Through the green deeps of leafy spring;
    I know the elfin cups and domes
    That are their small and secret homes.

    Yet is the light for ever lost
    That daily once thy meadows crossed,
    The voice no more by thee is heard
    That matched the song of stream and bird.

    Call me no more!--thy waters roll
    Here, in the world that is my soul,
    And here, though Earth be dr...

Henry John Newbolt