The Enemies

The angry wind
That cursed at me
Was nothing but an evil sprite
Vexed with any man's delight.

And strange it seemed
That a dark wind
Should run down from a mountain steep
And shout as though the world were asleep.

But when he ceased
And silence was--
Who could but fear what evil sprite
Crept through the tunnels of the night?

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

Prayer To My Lord

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Chair

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Darksome Nightingale

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Absence

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

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Fear

Surely I must have ailed
On that dark night,
Or my childish courage failed
Because there was no light;
Or terror must have come
With his chill wing,
And made my angel dumb,
Or found him slumbering.
Because I could not sleep
Terror began to wake,
Close at my side to creep
And sting me like a snake.
And I was afraid of death,
But when I thought of pain--
O, language no word hath
To recall that thought again!
Into my heart fear crawled
And wreathed close around,
Mortal, convulsive, cold,
And I lay bound.
Fear set before my eyes
Unimaginable pain;
Approaching agonies
Sprang nimbly into my brain.
Just as a thrilling wind
Plucks every mournful wire,
So terror on my wild mind
Fingered, with ice and fire.
O, ...

John Frederick Freeman

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

Storm.

Out of the grey northwest, where many a day gone by
Ye tugged and howled in your tempestuous grot,
And evermore the huge frost giants lie,
Your wizard guards in vigilance unforgot,
Out of the grey northwest, for now the bonds are riven,
On wide white wings your thongless flight is driven,
That lulls but resteth not.

And all the grey day long, and all the dense wild night
Ye wheel and hurry with the sheeted snow,
By cedared waste and many a pine-dark height,
Across white rivers frozen fast below;
Over the lonely forests, where the flowers yet sleeping
Turn in their narrow beds with dreams of weeping
In some remembered woe;

Across the unfenced wide marsh levels, where the dry
Brown ferns sigh out, and last year's sedges scold
In some drear language, ...

Archibald Lampman

Time From His Grave

When the south-west wind came
The air grew bright and sweet, as though a flame
Had cleansed the world of winter. The low sky
As the wind lifted it rose trembling vast and high,
And white clouds sallied by
As children in their pleasure go
Chasing the sun beneath the orchard's shadow and snow.
Nothing, nothing was the same!
Not the dull brick, not the stained London stone,
Not the delighted trees that lost their moan--
Their moan that daily vexed me with such pain
Until I hated to see trees again;
Nor man nor woman was the same
Nor could be stones again,
Such light and colour with the south-west came.
As I drank all that brightness up I saw
A dark globe lapt in fold on fold of gloom,
With all her hosts asleep in that cold tomb,
Sealed by an iron law.

John Frederick Freeman

Nightwind

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain,
Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
To spread and foam and deluge all the plain.
The cotter listens at his door again,
Half doubting whether it be floods or wind,
And through the thickening darkness looks afraid,
Thinking of roads that travel has to find
Through night's black depths in danger's garb arrayed.
And the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops
When hushed to silence by the lifted hand
Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread
And thinks a deluge comes to drown the land;
Nor dares she go to bed until the tempest drops.

John Clare

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