The Golden Moment.

    Along the branches of the laden tree
        The ripe fruit smiling hang.    The afternoon
    Is emptied of all things done and things to be.
        Low in the sky the inconspicuous moon
    Stares enviously upon the mellow earth,
    That mocks her barren girth.

    Ripe blackberries and long green trailing grass
        Are motionless beneath the heavy light:
    The happy birds and creeping things that pass
        Go fitfully and stir as if in fright,
    That they have broken on some mystery
    In bramble or in tree.

    This is no hour for beings that are maiden;
        The spring is virgin, lightly afraid and cold,
    But now the whole round earth is ripe and laden
        And stirs beneath her coverlet of gold
    And in her agony a moment calls...
    A heavy apple falls.

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

Apology.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Memory

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

A Night-Piece

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Now would I be.

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.

A Fruit Piece

The afternoon of summer folds
Its warm arms round the marigolds,

And with its gleaming fingers, pets
The watered pinks and violets

That from the casement vases spill,
Over the cottage window-sill,

Their fragrance down the garden walks
Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks.

How vividly the sunshine scrawls
The grape-vine shadows on the walls!

How like a truant swings the breeze
In high boughs of the apple-trees!

The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof,
Full languidly above the roof,

A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold
And precious mintings manifold.

High up, through curled green leaves, a pear
Hangs hot with ripeness here and there.

Beneath the sagging trellisings,
In lush, lack-lustre cluste...

James Whitcomb Riley

August

There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadows floor.

The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the cloven veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.

There were four apples on the tree,
Red stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.

The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Th...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Mid-August

From the upland hidden,
Where the hill is sunny
Tawny like pure honey
In the August heat,
Memories float unbidden
Where the thicket serries
Fragrant with ripe berries
And the milk-weed sweet.

Like a prayer-mat holy
Are the patterned mosses
Which the twin-flower crosses
With her flowerless vine;
In fragile melancholy
The pallid ghost flowers hover
As if to guard and cover
The shadow of a shrine.

Where the pine-linnet lingered
The pale water searches,
The roots of gleaming birches
Draw silver from the lake;
The ripples, liquid-fingered,
Plucking the root-layers,
Fairy like lute players
Lulling music make.

O to lie here brooding
Where the pine-tree column
Rises dark and solemn
To the airy la...

Duncan Campbell Scott

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

The Vision In The Wood.

    The husht September afternoon was sweet
        With rich and peaceful light.    I could not hear
    On either side the sound of moving feet
        Although the hidden road was very near.
    The laden wood had powdered sun in it,
        Slipped through the leaves, a quiet messenger
    To tell me of the golden world outside
    Where fields of stubble stretched through counties wide.

    And yet I did not move.    My head reposed
        Upon a tuft of dry and scented grass
    And, with half-seeing eyes, through eyelids closed,
        I watched the languid chain of shadows pass,
    Light as the slowly moving shade imposed
        By summer clouds upon a sea of glass,
    And strove to banish or to make more clear
    The elusive and persistent drea...

Edward Shanks

Song: Half Hope.

    August is gone and now this is September,
        Softer the sun in a cloudier sky;
    Yellow the leaves grow and apples grow golden,
        Blackberries ripen and hedges undress.
    Watch and you'll see the departure of summer,
        Here is the end, this the last month of all:
    Pause and look back and remember its promise,
        All that looked open and easy in May.

    Nothing will stay them, the seasons go onward,
        Lightly the bright months fly out of my hand,
    Softly the leading note calls a new octave;
        Autumn is coming and what have I done?
    Even as summer my young days go over,
        No day to pause on and nowhere to rest:
    Slowly they go but implacably onwards,
        Ah! and my dreams, alas, still they are dre...

Edward Shanks