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 shining insects creep
    About us where we lie
    Beneath a pleasant sky,
    In fields no trouble fills,
        Whence, as the traveller goes,
        The world's great ways unclose
    Through little wooded hills.

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

Bramber.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Sonnets on Separation II.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song: Fear in the Night.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song: Meadow and Orchard.

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 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: Love in the Open Air.

    I'll love you in the open air
        But stuffy rooms and blazing fires
    And mirrors with familiar stare
        Cloak and befoul my high desires.

    The dearest day that I have known
        Was in the fields, when driving rain
    Was like a veil around us thrown,
        A grey close veil without a stain.

    The young oak-tree was stripped and bare
        But naked twigs a shelter made,
    Where curious cows came round to stare
        And stood astonished and dismayed.

    Let it be rain or summer sun,
        Smell of wet earth or scent of flowers,
    Love, once more give me, give me one
        Of these enchanted lover's hours.

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

Now would I be.

        Now would I be in that removèd place
        Where the dim sunlight hardly comes at all
        And branches of the young trees interlace
        And long swathes of the brambles twine and fall;
        A space between the hedgerow and a road
        Not trod by foot of any known to me,
        Where now and then a cart with scented load
    Goes sleepy down the lane with creaking axle-tree.

        And there I'd lie upon the tumbled leaves,
        Watching a square of the all else hidden sky,
        And made such songs a drowsy mind believes
        To be most perfect music.    So would I
    Keep my face heavenwards and bless eternity,
        Wherein my heart could be as glad as this
        And lazily I'd bid all men come hither
        And in m...

Edward Shanks

A Far Place

    (To K. Wigram.)

    Sheltered, when the rain blew over the hills it was,
    Sunny all day when the days of summer were long,
    Beyond all rumour of labouring towns it was,
    But at dawn and evening its trees were noisy with song.

    There were four elms on the southward lawn standing,
    Their great trunks evenly set in a square
    Of shadowed grass in spring pierced with crocuses,
    And their tops met high in the empty air.

    Where the morning rose the grey church was below us,
    If we stood by the porch we saw on either hand
    The ground falling, the trees falling, and meadows,
    A river, hamlets and spires: a chequered land,

    A wide country where cloud shadows went chasing
    Mile after mile, diminishing fast, ...

John Collings Squire, Sir

The Evening Of The Holiday.

    The night is mild and clear, and without wind,
    And o'er the roofs, and o'er the gardens round
    The moon shines soft, and from afar reveals
    Each mountain-peak serene. O lady, mine,
    Hushed now is every path, and few and dim
    The lamps that glimmer through the balconies.
    Thou sleepest! in thy quiet rooms, how light
    And easy is thy sleep! No care thy heart
    Consumes; and little dost thou know or think,
    How deep a wound thou in my heart hast made.
    Thou sleepest; I to yonder heaven turn,
    That seems to greet me with a loving smile,
    And to that Nature old, omnipotent,
    That doomed me still to suffer. "I to thee
    All hope deny," she said, "e'en hope; nor may
    Those eyes of thine e'er shine, save through their tears."...

Giacomo Leopardi