Strife

The wind fought with the angry trees.
All morning in immense unease
They wrestled, and ruin strawed the ground,
And the north sky frowned.
The oak and aspen arms were held
Defiant, but the death was knelled
Of slender saplings, snappy boughs,
Twigs brittle as men's vows.
How moaned the trees the struggle through!
Anger almost to madness grew.
The aspen screamed, and came a roar
Of the great wind locked in anguish sore,
Desolate with defeat ... and then
Quiet fell again:
The trees slept quiet as great cows
That lie at noon under broad boughs.
How pure, how strange the calm; but hist!...
Was it the trees by the wind kissed?
Or from afar, where the wind's hid,
A throb, a sob?

John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman was a British poet, notable as a Georgian poet. He was born in London and worked initially as an office boy and later as a clerk before gaining recognition for his poetic works. Freeman primarily wrote about nature, identity, and the human condition. Over the course of his literary career, he published several books of poetry, and his works were praised for their sincerity and technical excellence. His notable collections include 'Presage of Victory' and 'Stone Trees.'

John Frederick Freeman

Happiness

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Caterpillars

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Unthrift

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Not With These Eyes

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

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Ten O'Clock No More [1]

The wind has thrown
The boldest of trees down.
Now disgraced it lies,
Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,
Naked and still.

It was the wind
So furious and blind
That scourged half England through,
Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew
By dell and hill.

And springing here,
The black clouds dragging near,
Against this lonely elm
Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm
In one wild shock.

As in the deep
Satisfaction of dark sleep
The tree her dream dreamed on,
And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown
And her head rock.

And the wind raught
Her ageing boughs and caught
Her body fast again.
Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,
She fell and died.

Her noble height,<...

John Frederick Freeman

Stone Trees

Last night a sword-light in the sky
Flashed a swift terror on the dark.
In that sharp light the fields did lie
Naked and stone-like; each tree stood
Like a tranced woman, bound and stark.
Far off the wood
With darkness ridged the riven dark.

And cows astonished stared with fear,
And sheep crept to the knees of cows,
And conies to their burrows slid,
And rooks were still in rigid boughs,
And all things else were still or hid.
From all the wood
Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear.

In that cold trance the earth was held
It seemed an age, or time was nought.
Sure never from that stone-like field
Sprang golden corn, nor from those chill
Gray granite trees was music wrought.
In all the wood
Even the tall poplar hung stone still.

John Frederick Freeman

The Pine Tree.

The wind last night was wild and strong,
It shriek'd, it whistl'd and it roar'd,
And went with whirl and swoop along,
'Mid falling trees and crashing board.

The timbers creak'd, the rafters sway'd,
And e'en some roofs, upheav'd and torn,
Came crashing to the earth, and laid
Before the view, upon the morn.

The air seem'd like some monstrous thing,
By its uncurbed passion held;
Like dreadful dragon on the wing,
So horribly it scream'd and yell'd.

Now venting a triumphant shout,
And ever and anon a groan,
Like fiend from prison lately out,
Or like unhappy chain'd one's moan.

There was a lofty pine I knew;
Each morn and eve I passed it by;
To such a lofty height it grew,
It caught at once each passing eye.

It stood...

Thomas Frederick Young

The Winds

In these green fields, in this green spring,
In this green world of burning sweet
That drives its sour from everything
And burns the Arctic with new heat,
That seems so slow and flies so fleet
On half-seen wing;

In this green world the birds are all
With motion mad, are wild with song;
The grass leaps like a sudden wall
Flung up against a foe that long
Strode round and wrought his frosty wrong.
The bright winds call,

The bright winds answer; the clouds rise
White from the grave, shaking their head,
Strewing the grave-clothes through the skies,
In languid drifting shadow shed
Upon the fields where, slowly spread,
Each shadow dies.

In every wood is green and gold,
The unbridged river runs all green
With queenly swan-clouds f...

John Frederick Freeman

The Winds

    To me the winds that die and start,
    And strive in wars that never cease,
    Are dearer than the level peace
    That lies unstirred at summer's heart;

    More dear to me the shadowed wold,
    Where, with report of tempest rife,
    The air intensifies with life,
    Than quiet fields of summer's gold.

    I am the winds' admitted friend:
    They seal our linked fellowships
    With speech of warm or icy lips,
    With touch of west and east that blend.

    And when my spirit listless stands,
    With folded wings that do not live,
    Their own assuageless wings they give
    To lift her from the stirless lands.

            *        *        *        *        *

    Within the place unmanifest
    Where centra...

Clark Ashton Smith

Change

A late and lonely figure stains the snow,
Into the thickening darkness dims and dies.
Heavily homeward now the last rooks go,
And dull-eyed stars stare from the skies.
A whimpering wind
Sounds, then's still and whimpers again.

Yet 'twas a morn of oh, such air and light!
The early sun ran laughing over the snow,
The laden trees held out their arms all white
And whiteness shook on the white below.
Lovely the shadows were,
Deep purple niches, 'neath a dome of light.

And now night's fall'n, the west wind begins to creep
Among the stiff trees, over the frozen snow;
An hour--and the world stirs that was asleep,
A trickle of water's heard, stealthy and slow,
First faintly here and there,
And then continual everywhere.

And morn will look as...

John Frederick Freeman