Inevitable Change

Young as the Spring seemed life when she
Came from her silent East to me;
Unquiet as Autumn was my breast
When she declined into her West.

Such tender, such untroubling things
She taught me, daughter of all Springs;
Such dusty deathly lore I learned
When her last embers redly burned.

How should it hap (Love, canst thou say?)
Such end should be to so pure day?
Such shining chastity give place
To this annulling grave's disgrace?

Such hopes be quenched in this despair,
Grace chilled to granite everywhere?
How should--in vain I cry--how should
That be, alas, which only could!

John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman was a British poet, notable as a Georgian poet. He was born in London and worked initially as an office boy and later as a clerk before gaining recognition for his poetic works. Freeman primarily wrote about nature, identity, and the human condition. Over the course of his literary career, he published several books of poetry, and his works were praised for their sincerity and technical excellence. His notable collections include 'Presage of Victory' and 'Stone Trees.'

John Frederick Freeman

Listening

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Thorn

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Against The Cold Pale Sky

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Winds

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

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From Wear To Thames

Is it because Spring now is come
That my heart leaps in its bed of dust?
Is it with sorrow or strange pleasure
To watch the green time's gathering treasure?

Or is there some too sharp distaste
In all this quivering green and gold?
Something that makes bare boughs yet barer,
And the eye's pure delight the rarer?

Not that the new found Spring is sour....
The blossom swings on the cherry branch,
From Wear to Thames I have seen this greenness
Cover the six-months-winter meanness.

And windflowers and yellow gillyflowers
Pierce the astonished earth with light:
And most-loved wallflower's bloody petal
Shakes over that long frosty battle.

But this leaping, sinking heart
Finds question in grass, bud and blossom--
Too deeply into the ea...

John Frederick Freeman

To The Heavenly Power

When this burning flesh
Burns down in Time's slow fire to a glowing ash;
When these lips have uttered
The last word, and the ears' last echoes fluttered;
And crumbled these firm bones
As in the chemic air soft blackened stones;
When all that was mortal made
Owns its mortality, proud yet afraid;

Then when I stumble in
The broad light, from this twilight weak and thin,
What of me will change,
What of that brightness will be new and strange?
Shall I indeed endure
New solitude in that high air and pure,
Aching for these fingers
On which my assurèd hand now shuts and lingers?

Now when I look back
On manhood's and on childhood's far-stretched track,
I see but a little child
In a green sunny world-home; there enisled
By another, cloudy...

John Frederick Freeman

The Shock

Thinking of these, of beautiful brief things,
Of things that are of sense and spirit made,
Of meadow flowers, dense hedges and dark bushes
With roses trailing over nests of thrushes;

Of dews so pure and bright and flush'd and cool,
And like the flowers as brief as beautiful;
Thinking of the tall grass and daisies tall
And whispered music of the waving bents;

Of these that like a simple child I love
Since they are life and life is flowers and grass;
Thinking of trees, and water at their feet
Answering the trees with murmur childlike sweet;

Thinking of those high thoughts that passed like the wind
Yet left their brightness lying on the mind,
As the white blossoms the raw airs shake down
That lie awhile yet lovely on the chill grass;

Think...

John Frederick Freeman

The Second Flood

How could I know, how could I guess
That here was your great happiness--
In mine? And how could I know
Your love infinite must grow?

Suddenly at dawn I wake
To see the cruse of colour break
Over the East, and then the gray
Creep up with light of common day ...
No, no, no! again that bright
Flashing, flushing, flooding light
Leading on day, until I ache
With love to see the dark world wake.

O, with such second flood your love
Painted my earth and heaven above,
With such wild magnificence
As bruised my heart in every sense,
In every nerve. Was ever man
Fit this renewed love to sustain?

Now in these days when Autumn's leaf
Is red and gold, and for a brief
Day the earth flowers ere it dies,
What if Spring came with new su...

John Frederick Freeman

The Last Eve Of Summer

Summer's last sun nigh unto setting shines
Through yon columnar pines,
And on the deepening shadows of the lawn
Its golden lines are drawn.

Dreaming of long gone summer days like this,
Feeling the wind's soft kiss,
Grateful and glad that failing ear and sight
Have still their old delight,

I sit alone, and watch the warm, sweet day
Lapse tenderly away;
And, wistful, with a feeling of forecast,
I ask, "Is this the last?

"Will nevermore for me the seasons run
Their round, and will the sun
Of ardent summers yet to come forget
For me to rise and set?"

Thou shouldst be here, or I should be with thee
Wherever thou mayst be,
Lips mute, hands clasped, in silences of speech
Each answering unto each.

For this still hour, ...

John Greenleaf Whittier

In Those Old Days

In those old days you were called beautiful,
But I have worn the beauty from your face;
The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek
With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes
Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on
Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.
Even your voice is altered when you speak,
Or is grown mute with old anxiety
For me.

Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns
Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,
And then under the flame a glowing dome
Deepens slowly into blood-like light:--
So did you flame and in flame take delight,
So are you hollow'd now with aching fire.
But I still warm me and make there my home,
Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly
For me.

Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull,
...

John Frederick Freeman