Song: The Weed.

    My mother told me this for true
        That there behind the mountains,
    That wear the mists about their feet
        And clouds about their summits,
    There grows the weed Forgetfulness,
        It grows there in the gullies.

    If I but knew the way thereto,
        Three days long would I wander
    And pick a handful of the weed
        And drink it steeped in honey,
    That so I might forget your mouth
        A thousand times that kissed me.

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 Morning Sun.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

The Winter Soldier: The Dead Poet.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

In Absence

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.

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

The Spice-tree

    This is the song
    The spice-tree sings:
    "Hunger and fire,
    Hunger and fire,
    Sky-born Beauty -
    Spice of desire,"
    Under the spice-tree
    Watch and wait,
    Burning maidens
    And lads that mate.

    The spice-tree spreads
    And its boughs come down
    Shadowing village and farm and town.
    And none can see
    But the pure of heart
    The great green leaves
    And the boughs descending,
    And hear the song that is never ending.

    The deep roots whisper,
    The branches say: -
    "Love to-morrow,
    And love to-day,
    And till Heaven's day,
    And till Heaven's day."

    The moon is a bird's nest in its branches,
    The moon is hung in its topmost spaces...

Vachel Lindsay

Song in Time of Waiting.

    Because the days are long for you and me,
        I make this song to lighten their slow time,
    So that the weary waiting fruitful be
        Or blossomed only by my limping rhyme.
                The days are very long
        And may not shortened be by any chime
        Of measured words or any fleeting song.
    Yet let us gather blossoms while we wait
    And sing brave tunes against the face of fate.

    Day after day goes by: the exquisite
        Procession of the variable year,
    Summer, a sheaf with flowers bound up in it,
        And autumn, tender till the frosts appear
                And dry the humid skies;
        And winter following on, aloof, austere,
        Clad in the garments of a frore sunrise;
    And spring again.    Ma...

Edward Shanks

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

What The Flowers Saw

She came through shade and shine,
By scarlet trumpetvine
And fragrant buttonbush,
That heaped the wayside hush
And oh!
The orange-red of the butterfly weed,
And pink of the milkweed's plume,
Nodded as if to give her heed
As she passed through gleam and gloom, heigh-ho!
As she passed through gleam and gloom.
Marybud-gold her hair;
And deep as it was fair;
Her eyes a chicory-blue,
Two wildflowers bright with dew
And oh!
The flowers knew, as flowers know,
The one she'd come to find;
They read the secret she hid below
In her maiden heart and mind, heigh-ho!
Her maiden heart and mind.
All day with hearts elate,
They watched him from the gate,
Where in the field he mowed
At the end of the old hill-road
And oh!
They seemed...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Flitting

I've left my own old home of homes,
Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes,
I pause and hardly know her face.
I miss the hazel's happy green,
The blue bell's quiet hanging blooms,
Where envy's sneer was never seen,
Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
Molehills and rabbit tracks that lead
Through beesom, ling, and teazel burrs
That spread a wilderness indeed;
The woodland oaks and all below
That their white powdered branches shield,
The mossy paths: the very crow
Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair
That seems to feel itself from home,
And hear bird music here and there
From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;
I hear, but all is strange and ne...

John Clare