The Bright Rider

All the night through I drank
Sleep like water or cool cider;
Life flowed over and I sank
Down below the night of clouds....
Then on a pale horse was rider
Through long brushing woods
Where the owl in silence broods,
Quavers, and is quiet again;
Where the grass dark and rank
Breathes on the still air its rain.
Rain and dark and green and sound
Closing slowly round
Swept me as I rode,
And rode on until I came
Where a white cold river flowed
Under woods thin and bare
In the moon's long candle flame.
Through the woods the wind crawled
Leviathan, and here and there
Branches creaked and old winds howled
Sick for home.
All the night I saw the river,
As a girl that sees beside her
Love, between fear and fear
Riding, and is dumb.
The white horse turned to cross the river,
But the waters like a wall
Rose and hung dark over all;
And as they fell the river wider
Wider grew, and sky was bare
Save of the sick candle's stare.
Death the divider
Glittered cold and dark and deep
Under banks of fear.
But that rider
Trembling, bright, rode on,
Trembling and bright rode on
Through green lanes of sleep.

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

When Childhood Died

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Dark Night Of The Mind

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Bring Your Beauty

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

O Muse Divine

John Frederick Freeman, 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 Ride Back

        Before the coming of the dark, he dreamed
        An old-world faded story: of a knight,
        Much like in need to him, who was no knight!
        And of a road, much like the road his soul
        Groped over, desperate to meet Her soul.
        Beside the bed Death waited. And he dreamed.


        His limbs were heavy from the fight,
        His mail was dark with dust and blood;
        On his good horse they bound him tight,
        And on his breast they bound the rood
        To help him in the ride that night.

        When he crashed through the wood's wet rim,
        About the dabbled reeds a breeze
        Went moaning broken words and dim;
        The haggard shapes of twilight trees
        Caught with their scrawny ha...

William Vaughn Moody

The Night Ride

The red sun on the lonely lands
Gazed, under clouds of rose,
As one who under knitted hands
Takes one last look and goes.

Then Pain, with her white sister Fear,
Crept nearer to my bed:
The sands are running; dost thou hear
Thy sobbing heart? she said.

There came a rider to the gate,
And stern and clear spake he:
For meat or drink thou must not wait,
But rise and ride with me.

I waited not for meat or drink,
Or kiss, or farewell kind,
But oh! my heart was sore to think
Of friends I left behind.

We rode oer hills that seemed to sweep
Skyward like swelling waves;
The living stirred not in their sleep,
The dead slept in their graves.

And ever as we rode I heard
A moan of anguish sore,
No voice of man...

Victor James Daley

The Headless Horseman

On the black road through the wood
    As I rode,
There the Headless Horseman stood;
By the wild pool in the wood,
    As I rode.

From the shadow of an oak,
    As I rode,
Demon steed and rider broke;
By the thunder-shattered oak,
    As I rode.

On the waste road through the plain,
    As I rode,
At my back he whirled like rain;
On the tempest-blackened plain,
    As I rode.

Four fierce hoofs shod red with fire,
    As I rode,
Woke the wild rocks, dark and dire;
Eyes and nostrils streamed with fire,
    As I rode.

On the deep road through the rocks,
    As I rode,
I could reach his horse's locks;
Through the echo-hurling rocks,
    As I rode.

And again I looked behind,
    As I rod...

Madison Julius Cawein

Nightfall

I


Eve goes slowly
Dancing lightly
Clad with shadow up the hills;
Birds their singing
Cease at last, and silence
Falling like fine rain the valley fills.

Not a bat's cry
Stirs the stillness
Perfect as broad water sleeping,
Not a moth's wings
Flit in the gathering darkness,
Not a mouselike moonray ev'n comes creeping.

Then a light shines
From the casement,
Wreathed with jasmine boughs and stars,
Palely golden
As the late eve's primrose,
Glimmers through green leafy prison bars.



II


Only joy now
Come in silence,
Come before your look's forgot;
Come and hearken
While the lonely shadow
Broadens on the hill and then is not.

Now the hour is,
Here the plac...

John Frederick Freeman

Beyond The Barn

I rose up with the sun
And climbed the hill.
I saw the white mists run
And shadows run
Down into hollow woods.

I went with the white clouds
That swept the hill.
A wind struck the low hedge trees
And clustering trees,
And rocked in each tall elm.

The long afternoon was calm
When down the hill
I came, and felt the air cool,
The shadows cool;
And I walked on footsore,

Saying, "But two hours more,
Then, the last hill....
Surely this road I know,
These hills I know,
All the unknown is known,

"And that barn, black and lone,
High on the hill--
There the long road ends,
The long day ends,
And travelling is over." ...

Nor thought nor travelling's over.
Here on the hill
The black barn i...

John Frederick Freeman

The Undying

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by
Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky.
They do not stay for question, do not hear
Any old human speech: their tongue and ear
Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not
And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not.
--Until I slept or, musing, on a heap
Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep
Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought
Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought.
For thinking of that unforgettable thing,
The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing
On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright,
Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light;
Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate,
The cruelty most dark, most desolate;
Thinking of the English dead--"How can you d...

John Frederick Freeman