Song.

Why have you stolen my delight
In all the golden shows of Spring
When every cherry-tree is white
And in the limes the thrushes sing,

O fickler than the April day,
O brighter than the golden broom,
O blither than the thrushes' lay,
O whiter than the cherry-bloom,

O sweeter than all things that blow ...
Why have you only left for me
The broom, the cherry's crown of snow,
And thrushes in the linden-tree?

Francis Brett Young

Francis Brett Young was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and composer. He trained as a doctor before turning to writing. His literary career included a Prolific output of novels, many of which depict rural England and life during World War I. Brett Young also wrote poetry and plays, as well as composing music, reflecting his diverse artistic talents. His works provide valuable insights into the periods and settings they describe. Among his notable works are 'The Iron Age' and 'Portrait of Clare.'

Francis Brett Young

February

Francis Brett Young, Simple Poetry

Prothalamion

Francis Brett Young, Simple Poetry

Invocation

Francis Brett Young, Simple Poetry

Lochanilaun

Francis Brett Young, 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.

Song.

        I sing the yellow leaf,
        That rustling strews
        The wintry path, where grief
        Delights to muse,
Spring's early violet, that sweetly opes
    Its fragrant leaves to the young morning's kiss,
Type of our youth's fond dreams, and cherished hopes,
    Will soon be this:
        A sere and yellow leaf,
        That rustling strews
        The wintry path, where grief
        Delights to muse.
The summer's rose, in whose rich hues we read
    Pleasure's gay bloom, and love's enchanting bliss,
And glory's laurel, waving o'er the dead,
    Will soon be this:
        A sere and yellow leaf,
        That rustling strews
        The wintry path, where grief
        Delights to muse.

Frances Anne Kemble

A Spring Song And A Later

She sang a song of May for me,
Wherein once more I heard
The mirth of my glad infancy -
The orchard's earliest bird -
The joyous breeze among the trees
New-clad in leaf and bloom,
And there the happy honey-bees
In dewy gleam and gloom.

So purely, sweetly on the sense
Of heart and spirit fell
Her song of Spring, its influence -
Still irresistible, -
Commands me here - with eyes ablur -
To mate her bright refrain.
Though I but shed a rhyme for her
As dim as Autumn rain.

James Whitcomb Riley

Cherry-Time

Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
        Merry, merry,
        Take a cherry;
        Mine are sounder,
        Mine are rounder,
        Mine are sweeter
        For the eater
        Under the moon.
And you'll be fairies soon.

In the cherry pluckt at night,
With the dew of summer swelling,
There's a juice of pure delight,
Cool, dark, sweet, divinely smelling.
        Merry, merry,
        Take a cherry;
        Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder
        Mine are sweeter
        For the eater
        In the moonlight.
And you'll be fairies quite.

When I sound the fairy call,
Gather here in silent meeting,
Chin ...

Robert von Ranke Graves

Time Of Clearer Twitterings

I.

Time of crisp and tawny leaves,
And of tarnished harvest sheaves,
And of dusty grasses - weeds -
Thistles, with their tufted seeds
Voyaging the Autumn breeze
Like as fairy argosies:
Time of quicker flash of wings,
And of clearer twitterings
In the grove, or deeper shade
Of the tangled everglade, -
Where the spotted water-snake
Coils him in the sunniest brake;
And the bittern, as in fright,
Darts, in sudden, slanting flight,
Southward, while the startled crane
Films his eyes in dreams again.

II

Down along the dwindled creek
We go loitering. We speak
Only with old questionings
Of the dear remembered things
Of the days of long ago,
When the stream seemed thus and so
In our boyish eyes: - The bank
G...

James Whitcomb Riley

An Ode To Spring (To Grant And Nellie Allen)

Is it the Spring?
    Or are the birds all wrong
That play on flute and viol,
    A thousand strong,
In minstrel galleries
    Of the long deep wood,
Epiphanies
    Of bloom and bud.

Grave minstrels those,
    Of deep responsive chant;
But see how yonder goes,
    Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,
Yon Shelley-lark,
    And hark!
Him on the giddy brink
    Of pearly heaven
His fairy anvil clink.

Or watch, in fancy,
    How the brimming note
Falls, like a string of pearls,
    From out his heavenly throat;
Or like a fountain
    In Hesperides,
Raining its silver rain,
    In gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls -
    Twice happy rhyme!

Ah, none of these
    May make it plain,
No im...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Tell-Tale Flowers

And has the Spring's all glorious eye
No lesson to the mind?
The birds that cleave the golden sky--
Things to the earth resigned--
Wild flowers that dance to every wind--
Do they no memory leave behind?

Aye, flowers! The very name of flowers,
That bloom in wood and glen,
Brings Spring to me in Winter's hours,
And childhood's dreams again.
The primrose on the woodland lea
Was more than gold and lands to me.

The violets by the woodland side
Are thick as they could thrive;
I've talked to them with childish pride
As things that were alive:
I find them now in my distress--
They seem as sweet, yet valueless.

The cowslips on the meadow lea,
How have I run for them!
I looked with wild and childish glee
Upon each golden gem:

John Clare