The Lake

    I am a lake, altered by every wind.
    The mild South breathes upon me, and I spread
    A dance of merry ripples in the sun.
    The West comes stormily and I am troubled,
    My waves conflict and black depths show between them.
    Under the East wind bitter I grow and chill,
    Slate-coloured, desolate, hopeless.    But when blows
    A steady wind from the North my motion ceases,
    I am frozen smooth and hard; my conquered surface
    Returns the skies' cold light without a comment.
    I make no sound, nor can I; nor can I show
    What depth I have, if any depth, below.

John Collings Squire, Sir

John Collings Squire, also known as Sir John Squire, was an influential British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the early 20th century. He is best known for his role as editor of the London Mercury, a powerful literary journal of the time. Squire was a leading figure in the Georgian poetry movement, which sought to return English poetry to its traditional form and diction.

John Collings Squire, Sir

Lines

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

Rivers

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

The Cracked Bell - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)

John Collings Squire, Sir, Simple Poetry

On A Friend Recently Dead

John Collings Squire, Sir, 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.

Antinomies On A Railway Station

    As I stand waiting in the rain
    For the foggy hoot of the London train,
    Gazing at silent wall and lamp
    And post and rail and platform damp,
    What is this power that comes to my sight
    That I see a night without the night,
    That I see them clear, yet look them through,
    The silvery things and the darkly blue,
    That the solid wall seems soft as death,
    A wavering and unanchored wraith,
    And rails that shine and stones that stream
    Unsubstantial as a dream?
    What sudden door has opened so,
    What hand has passed, that I should know
    This moving vision not a trance
    That melts the globe of circumstance,
    This sight that marks not least or most
    And makes a stone a passing ghost?
    Is it that a yea...

John Collings Squire, Sir

In The Park

    This dense hard ground I tread.
    These iron bars that ripple past,
    Will they unshaken stand when I am dead
    And my deep thoughts outlast?

    Is it my spirit slips,
    Falls, like this leaf I kick aside;
    This firmness that I feel about my lips,
    Is it but empty pride?

    Mute knowledge conquers me;
    I contemplate them as they are,
    Faint earth and shadowy bars that shake and flee,
    Less hard, more transient far

    Than those unbodied hues
    The sunset flings on the calm river;
    And, as I look, a swiftness thrills my shoes
    And my hands with empire quiver.

    Now light the ground I tread,
    I walk not now but rather float;
    Clear but unreal is the scene outspread,
    Pitiful,...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Lake Superior.

Father of Lakes! thy waters bend,
    Beyond the eagle's utmost view,
When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send
    Back to the sky its world of blue.

Boundless and deep the forests weave
    Their twilight shade thy borders o'er,
And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
    Their rugged forms along thy shore.

Nor can the light canoes, that glide
    Across thy breast like things of air,
Chase from thy lone and level tide,
    The spell of stillness deepening there.

Yet round this waste of wood and wave,
    Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,
That, breathing o'er each rock and cave,
    To all, a wild, strange aspect gives.

The thunder-riven oak, that flings
    Its grisly arms athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image bring...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Fen Landscape

    Wind waves the reeds by the river,
    Grey sky lids the leaden water.
    Ducks fly low across the water,
    Three flying: one quacks sadly.

    Grey are the sky and the water,
    Green the lost ribbons of reed-beds,
    Small in the silence a black boat
    Floats upon wide pale mirrors.

John Collings Squire, Sir

A Shallow Stream.

There is a stream to northward, thinly spread
Over a shelving, many-fissured shale,
That brawls and blusters in its shallow bed,
And ends its course inglorious in a swale.
Its babble stirs the laughter of the hills;
The rooted mountains mock its fume and fret;
And all the summer long the idle mills
Wait wearily with water-wheel unwet.

Let us not waste our lives in froth and foam
And unavailing vanity of noise;
"Still waters deepest run" - the ancient gnome
Pricks well our sham, conceited bubble-toys;
Who serve best here in God's great halidome
Have volume, depth, serenity and poise.

W. M. MacKeracher

By The Lake.

The waves are dashing on the shore,
With wild, glad joy, I stand and view them;
And, as they break with sullen roar,
My heart responds with gladness, to them.

They've pow'r to thrill the human soul,
As on the shore they break so madly,
The spirit, bounding, hears their roll,
And speaks responsive, wildly, gladly.

The heart, with proud, defiant beats,
Re-echoes the triumphant roar,
And, as each wave its course retreats,
The pulse retires to beat once more.

The gull screams wildly o'er the waves,
Defiant in its stormy glee;
It screams, perchance, o'er wat'ry graves
And recks not, heeds not, nor do we.

But comes a time, when waves and wind,
In restful quietude remain,
A change then comes upon the mind,
And stormy passion's r...

Thomas Frederick Young