Smiles

I saw a black girl once,
As black as winter's night;
Till through her parted lips
There came a flood of light;
It was the milky way
Across her face so black:
Her two lips closed again,
And night came back.

I see a maiden now,
Fair as a summer's day;
Yet through her parted lips
I see the milky way;
It makes the broad daylight
In summer time look black:
Her two lips close again,
And night comes back.

William Henry Davies

William Henry Davies was a Welsh poet and writer, best known for his poetry depicting tramp life and the natural world. Davies spent much of his life as a wanderer in the UK and the USA. Despite his lifestyle, he became one of the most popular poets of his time, with works including 'Leisure', which begins with the famous lines, 'What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'. His autobiography, 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp', details his adventures and is considered a classic.

William Henry Davies

England

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

A Bird's Anger

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

On Hearing Mrs. Woodhouse Play The Harpsichord

William Henry Davies, Simple Poetry

Thunderstorms

William Henry Davies, 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.

Young Beauty

When at each door the ruffian winds
Have laid a dying man to groan,
And filled the air on winter nights
With cries of infants left alone;
And every thing that has a bed
Will sigh for others that have none:

On such a night, when bitter cold,
Young Beauty, full of love thoughts sweet,
Can redden in her looking-glass;
With but one gown on, in bare feet,
She from her own reflected charms
Can feel the joy of summer's heat.

William Henry Davies

One Night

Was it last summer, or ages gone,
    That damp, dark night in the August dusk,
When I waited for you by the gate alone?
    And the air was heavy with scents like musk.
Swiftly and silently shooting down
    Like the lonesome light of a falling star,
I saw through the shadows dense and brown,
    The dull red light of your fine cigar.

Like a king who taketh his own, you came
    Through the lowering night and the falling dew.
Like one who yields to a rightful claim,
    I waited there in the dusk for you.
Never again when the day grows late,
    Never again in the years to be,
Shall I stand in the dark and dew, and wait,
    And never again will you come to me.

But always and ever when high and far
    The old moon hideth her troubled face,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Summer Night, Riverside

In the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled in my hair....
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.
To-night what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This years blossoms, clinging to its coils?

Sara Teasdale

Evening Beauty: Blackfriars

Nought is but beauty weareth, near and far,
Under the pale, blue sky and lonely star.
This is that quick hour when the city turns
Her troubled harsh distortion and blind care
Into brief loveliness seen everywhere,
While in the fuming west the low sun smouldering burns.

Not brick nor marble the rich beauty owns,
Not this is held in starward-pointing stones.
Sun, wind and smoke the threefold magic stir,
Kissing each favourless poor ruin with kiss
Like that when lovers lovers lure to bliss,
And earth than towered heaven awhile is heavenlier.

Tall shafts that show the sky how far away!
The thousand-window'd house gilded with day
That fades to night; the arches low, the streamer
Everywhere of the ruddy'd smoke.... Is aught
Of loveliness so rich e'er sol...

John Frederick Freeman

Blackmwore Maidens

The primrwose in the shade do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An where do pretty maidens grow
An blow, but where the towr
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.

If you could zee their comely gait,
An pretty faces smiles,
A-trippen on so light o waight,
An steppen off the stiles;
A-gwain to church, as bells do swing
An ring ithin the towr,
Youd own the pretty maidens place
Is Blackmwore by the Stour.

If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
To Stower or Paladore,
An all the farmers housen showd
Their daughters at the door;
Youd cry to bachelors at hwome
Here, come: ithin an hour
You ll vind ten maidens to your mind,
I...

William Barnes

Last Night - And This.

    Last night - how deep the darkness was!
    And well I knew its depths, because
    I waded it from shore to shore,
    Thinking to reach the light no more.

    She would not even touch my hand. -
    The winds rose and the cedars fanned
    The moon out, and the stars fled back
    In heaven and hid - and all was black!

    But ah!    To-night a summons came,
    Signed with a teardrop for a name, -
    For as I wondering kissed it, lo,
    A line beneath it told me so.

    And now - the moon hangs over me
    A disk of dazzling brilliancy,
    And every star-tip stabs my sight
    With splintered glitterings of light!

James Whitcomb Riley