Song: Recollection.

    Hawthorn above, as pale as frost,
    Against the paling sky is lost:
    On the pool's dark sheet below,
    The candid water-daisies glow.

    As I came up and saw from far
    The water littered, star on star,
    I thought the may had left its hedge
    To float upon the pool's dark edge.

Edward Shanks

Edward Shanks was an English writer, poet, and novelist, known for his literary contributions during the early 20th century. Born on June 11, 1892, in London, Shanks attended Cambridge University where he was a member of the 'War Poets' of World War I. His works reflect the turmoil and changes of his time. Besides poetry, he wrote novels, essays, and book reviews, contributing significantly to English literature. He passed away on May 4, 1953.

Edward Shanks

The Wind

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

The Pursuit of Daphne.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Bramber.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song

Edward Shanks, 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.

The Glade

We may raise our voices even in this still glade:
    Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem,
We shall not dispel them. They are not made
    Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream.

We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought,
    Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare;
And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught,
    Cloudy against the sky and melting into air.

This which we have seen is eternally ours,
    No others shall tread in the glade which now we see;
Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers,
    Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.

Edward Shanks

A Night-Piece

Come out and walk. The last few drops of light
Drain silently out of the cloudy blue;
The trees are full of the dark-stooping night,
The fields are wet with dew.

All's quiet in the wood but, far away,
Down the hillside and out across the plain,
Moves, with long trail of white that marks its way,
The softly panting train.

Come through the clearing. Hardly now we see
The flowers, save dark or light against the grass,
Or glimmering silver on a scented tree
That trembles as we pass.

Hark now! So far, so far ... that distant song ...
Move not the rustling grasses with your feet.
The dusk is full of sounds, that all along
The muttering boughs repeat.

So far, so faint, we lift our heads in doubt.
Wind, or the blood that beats within our e...

Edward Shanks

The Idyll.

    This is the valley where we sojourn now,
        Cut up by narrow brooks and rich and green
    And shaded sweetly by the waving bough
        About the trench where floats the soft serene
    Arun with waters running low and low
        Through banks where lately still the tide has been;
    Here is our resting-place, you walk with me
    And watch the light die out in Amberley.

    The light that dies is soft and flooding still,
        Shed from the broad expanse of all the skies
    And brimming up the space from hill to hill,
        Where yet the sheep in their sweet exercise,
    Roaming the meadows, crop and find their fill
        And to each other speak with moaning cries;
    We on the hill-side standing rest and see
    The light die out in br...

Edward Shanks

Song: Meadow and Orchard.

    My heart is like a meadow,
    Where clouds go over,
    Dappling the mingled grass and clover
    With mingled sun and shadow,
    With light that will not stay
    And shade that sails away.

    Your heart is like an orchard,
    That has the sun for ever in its leaves,
    Where, on the grass beneath the trees,
    There falls the shadow of the fruit
    That ripen there for me.

Edward Shanks

Attadale West Highlands - To A. J.

A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,
Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep
The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;
Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze;
The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke;
The braes beyond - and when the ripple awoke,
They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.
The air was hushed and dreamy.    Evermore
A noise of running water whispered near.
A straggling crow called high and thin.    A bird
Trilled from the birch-leaves.    Round the shingled shore,
Yellow with weed, there wandered, vague and clear,
Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard.

William Ernest Henley

Memory

In silence and in darkness memory wakes
Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks
That day-long winter when the light and noise
And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will
Made barren her tender soil, when every voice
Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.

One bud-sheath breaks:
One sudden voice awakes.

What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night
That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,
    Her broad sail dimly white
On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?
Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,
Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,
Talking in whispers, to the little town,
    Down from the narrow hill
    Talking in whispers, for the air so still
Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made

Edward Shanks