Song: The Cup.

    As a hot traveller
    Going through stones and sands,
    Who sees clear water stir
    Amid the weary lands,
    Takes in his hollowed hands
    The clean and lively water,
    That trickles down his throat
    Like laughter, like laughter,

    So when you come to me
    Across these parchèd places
    And all the waste I see
    Flowered with your graces,
    I take between my hands
    Your face like a rare cup,
    Where kisses mix with laughter,
    And drink and drink them up
    Like water, like water.

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 Rock Pool

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Midwinter Madness.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Sonnets on Separation II.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song: Walking at Night.

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.

An Old Song.

    The wild duck fly over
        From river to river
    And so the young lover
        Goes roving for ever.

    They fly together,
        He walks alone:
    No maiden can tether
        Him with her moan.

    At the bursting of blossom
        On her breast his head;
    He has left her bosom
        Ere the apples are red.

    Across the valley,
        Singing he goes.
    In highway and alley
        He seeks a new rose.

    Tell me, O maidens,
        You who all day
    In lyrical cadence
        Dance and play,

    Why do you proffer
        Your sweets to one,
    Who takes all you offer
        And leaves you to moan?

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

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

Lifes Hebe

In the early morning-shine
Of a certain day divine,
I beheld a Maiden stand
With a pitcher in her hand;
Whence she poured into a cup
Until it was half filled up
Nectar that was golden light
In the cup of crystal bright.

And the first who took the cup
With pure water filled it up;
As he drank then, it was more
Ruddy golden than before:
And he leapt and danced and sang
As to Bacchic cymbals clang.

But the next who took the cup
With the red wine filled it up;
What he drank then was in hue
Of a heavy sombre blue:
First he reeled and then he crept,
Then lay faint but never slept.

And the next who took the cup
With the white milk filled it up;
What he drank at first seemed blood,
Then turned thick and brown as mu...

James Thomson

Song: The Holiday.

    The world's great ways unclose
    Through little wooded hills:
        An air that stirs and stills,
    Dies sighing where it rose
    Or flies to sigh again
        In elms, whose stately rows
    Receive the summer rain,
    And clouds, clouds, clouds go by,
    A drifting cavalry,
    In squadrons that disperse
        And troops that reassemble
    And now they pass and now
    Their glittering wealth disburse
        On tufted grass a-tremble
    And lately leafing bough.

    Thus through the shining day
    We'll love or pass away
    Light hours in golden sleep,
        With clos'd half-sentient eyes
    And lids the light comes through,
    As sheep and flowers do
        Who no new toils devise,
    While shin...

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