Natural Religion

Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air
I cried to God - 'O Father, art Thou there?'
Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard:
It was an angel, though it seemed a bird.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

I Crossed The Orchard Walking Home

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Song

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Source

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Silk-Hat Soldier

Richard Le Gallienne, 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.

Nature The Healer

When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small bird calling -
O then my heart is glad as they.

Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing -
I laugh to think of my disgrace.

A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array, -
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind a...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Seen and The Unseen

Nature is but the outward vestibule
Which God has placed before an unseen shrine,
The Visible is but a fair, bright vale
That winds around the great Invisible;
The Finite -- it is nothing but a smile
That flashes from the face of Infinite;
A smile with shadows on it -- and 'tis sad
Men bask beneath the smile, but oft forget
The loving Face that very smile conceals.
The Changeable is but the broidered robe
Enwrapped about the great Unchangeable;
The Audible is but an echo, faint,
Low whispered from the far Inaudible;
This earth is but an humble acolyte
A-kneeling on the lowest altar-step
Of this creation's temple, at the Mass
Of Supernature, just to ring the bell
At Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! while the world
Prepares its heart for consecration's hour....

Abram Joseph Ryan

The Country Gods

I dwell, with all things great and fair:
The green earth and the lustral air,
The sacred spaces of the sea,
Day in, day out, companion me.
Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine
With whom to sit and laugh and dine;
In every sunlit room is heard
Love singing, like an April bird,
And everywhere the moonlit eyes
Of beauty guard our paradise;
While, at the ending of the day,
To the kind country gods we pray,
And dues of our fair living pay.

Thus, when, reluctant, to the town
I go, with country sunshine brown,
So small and strange all seems to me -
the boonfellow of the sea -
That these town-people say and be:
Their insect lives, their insect talk,
Their busy little insect walk,
Their busy little insect stings -
And all the while t...

Richard Le Gallienne

To Nature

It may indeed be fantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Revelation

Still, as of old, in Beavor's Vale,
O man of God! our hope and faith
The Elements and Stars assail,
And the awed spirit holds its breath,
Blown over by a wind of death.

Takes Nature thought for such as we,
What place her human atom fills,
The weed-drift of her careless sea,
The mist on her unheeding hills?
What reeks she of our helpless wills?

Strange god of Force, with fear, not love,
Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer
Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move
Unpitying Energy to spare?
What doth the cosmic Vastness care?

In vain to this dread Unconcern
For the All-Father's love we look;
In vain, in quest of it, we turn
The storied leaves of Nature's book,
The prints her rocky tablets took.

I pray for faith, I long to t...

John Greenleaf Whittier

No Solitude

"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?"


I stood where ocean lashed the sounding shore
With his unresting waves, and gazed far out
Upon the billowy strife. I saw the deep
Lifting his watery arms to grasp the clouds,
While the black clouds stooped from the sable arch
Of the storm-darkened heavens, and deep to deep
Answered responsive in the ceaseless roar
Of thunders and of floods.

                                                    "Here, then, I am alone,
And this is solitude, "I murmured low,
As in the presence of the risen storm
I bowed my head abashed. "Alone?" -
The echoing concave of the skies replied, -
"Alone?" - the waves responded, and the winds
In hollow murmurs answered back - "Alone?"

"Thou canst not be alone, for God is he...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)