The Heart Of The Wood

My hope and my love, we will go for a while into the wood, scattering the dew, where we will see the trout, we will see the blackbird on its nest; the deer and the buck calling, the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches; the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green; and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood.

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist, and theatre manager. She co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre and wrote numerous short works for both companies. She was a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival and notably a mentor and friend to prominent Irish writers such as W. B. Yeats. Her collected writings include plays, folklore collections, and many translations of Irish language dramas. Her works remain significant in the context of early 20th-century Irish literature.

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English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

In A Wood

Hush, tis thy voice!
No, but a bird upon the bough
Romancing to its mate, but where art thou
To bid my heart rejoice?

Tis thy hand, speak!
No, but the branches striking in the wind
Let loose a withered leaf that falls behind
Blown to my cheek.

Hush, thy footfall!
No, tis a streamlet hidden in the fern,
Thus from dawn to dark I wait, I learn
Sorrow is all.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Broken Tryst

Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet,
Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet,
Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown,
How my heart goes up and up, and then goes down and down.

First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove,
Then a red fox feather-soft and footed like a dream;
All the woodland fools me, promising my love;
I think I hear her talking - 'tis but the running stream.

Vowelled talking water, mimicking her voice -
O how she promised she'd surely come to-day!
There she comes! she comes at last!    O heart of mine rejoice -
Nothing but a flight of birds winging on their way.

Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world;
Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled,
Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Woodland Halló.

(Perhaps) adapted for Music.

In our cottage, that peeps from the skirts of the wood,
I am mistress, no mother have I;
Yet blithe are my days, for my father is good,
And kind is my lover hard by;
They both work together beneath the green shade,
Both woodmen, my father and Joe.
Where I've listen'd whole hours to the echo that made
So much of a laugh or - Halló.

From my basket at noon they expect their supply,
And with joy from my threshold I spring;
For the woodlands I love, and the oaks waring high,
And Echo that sings as I sing.
Though deep shades delight me, yet love is my food,
As I call the dear name of my Joe;
His musical shout is the pride of the wood,
And my heart leaps to hear the - Halló.

Simple flowers of the grove, littl...

Robert Bloomfield

In A Wood

See "THE WOODLANDERS"



Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
Neighbourly spray?

Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease
Nature a soft release
From men's unrest.

But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin -
Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
Elms stout and tall.

Touches from ash, O wych,
Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
Sidelong from thorn...

Thomas Hardy

In Summer

When in dry hollows, hilled with hay,
The vesper-sparrow sings afar;
And, golden gray, dusk dies away
Beneath the amber evening-star:
There, where a warm and shadowy arm
The woodland lays around the farm,
To meet you where we kissed, dear heart,
To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart,
To kiss you at the tryst!

When clover fields smell cool with dew,
And crickets cry, and roads are still;
And faint and few the fire-flies strew
The dark where calls the whippoorwill;
There, in the lane, where sweet again
The petals of the wild-rose rain,
To stroll with head to head, dear heart,
And say the words oft said, dear heart,
And say the words oft said!

Madison Julius Cawein

Bare Boughs

O heart, - that beat the bird's blithe blood,
The blithe bird's strain, and understood
The song it sang to leaf and bud, -
What dost thou in the wood?

O soul, - that kept the brook's glad flow,
The glad brook's word to sun and moon, -
What dost thou here where song lies low,
And dead the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song,
The hautboys of the mad winds sing;
Where once a music flowed along,
The rain's wild bugle's ring.

The weedy water frets and ails,
And moans in many a sunless fall;
And, o'er the melancholy, trails
The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood!
O days, whom Death makes comrades of!
Where are the birds that thrilled the blood
When Life struck hands with Love?

Madison Julius Cawein