The Picture

    Here is a sea-legged sailor,
    Come to this tottering Inn,
Just when the bronze on its signboard is fading,
    And the black shades of evening begin.

    With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog,
    There stoops the Shepherd, and see,
All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle homeward,
    Under the sycamore tree.

    Very brown is the face of the Sailor,
    His bundle is crimson, and green
Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o'er the Tavern,
    And blue the far meadows between.

    But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor,
    His Mug and his platter of Delf,
And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog
    The painter has kept to himself.

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

Sea-Magic

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Never More, Sailor

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Polonius

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Child In The Story Awakes

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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The Englishman

I met a sailor in the woods,
    A silver ring wore he,
His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue,
    And thus he said to me: -

'What country, say, of this round earth,
    What shore of what salt sea,
Be this, my son, I wander in,
    And looks so strange to me?'

Says I, 'O foreign sailorman,
    In England now you be,
This is her wood, and this her sky,
    And that her roaring sea.'

He lifts his voice yet louder,
    'What smell be this,' says he,
'My nose on the sharp morning air
    Snuffs up so greedily?'

Says I, 'It is wild roses
    Do smell so winsomely,
And winy briar too,' says I,
    'That in these thickets be.'

'And oh!' says he, 'what leetle bird
    Is singing in yon high tree,
So every...

Walter De La Mare

The Waggoner - Canto Second

IF Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,
Had, with its belfry's humble stock,
A little pair that hang in air,
Been mistress also of a clock,
(And one, too, not in crazy plight)
Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling
Under the brow of old Helvellyn
Its bead-roll of midnight,
Then, when the Hero of my tale
Was passing by, and, down the vale
(The vale now silent, hushed I ween
As if a storm had never been)
Proceeding with a mind at ease;
While the old Familiar of the seas,
Intent to use his utmost haste,
Gained ground upon the Waggon fast,
And gives another lusty cheer;
For spite of rumbling of the wheels,
A welcome greeting he can hear;
It is a fiddle in its glee
Dinning from the CHERRY TREE!

William Wordsworth

Summer Evening

The sandy cat by the Farmer's chair
Mews at his knee for dainty fare;
Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse
In the dewy fields the cattle lie
Chewing the cud 'neath a fading sky
Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer's day.

Walter De La Mare

A Dutch Picture

Simon Danz has come home again,
    From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen
    And sold him in Algiers.

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles,
    And weathercocks flying aloft in air,
There are silver tankards of antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles
    Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip-garden there by the town,
    Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,
    Walks in a waking dream.

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks
Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain,
And the listed tulips look like Turks,
And the silent gardener as he works
    Is c...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lob Lie By The Fire

He squats by the fire
    On his three-legged stool,
When all in the house
    With slumber are full.

And he warms his great hands,
    Hanging loose from each knee.
And he whistles as soft
    As the night wind at sea.

For his work now is done;
    All the water is sweet;
He has turned each brown loaf,
    And breathed magic on it.

The milk in the pan,
    And the bacon on beam
He has "spelled" with his thumb,
    And bewitched has the dream.

Not a mouse, not a moth,
    Not a spider but sat,
And quaked as it wondered
    What next he'd be at.

But his heart, O, his heart -
    It belies his great nose;
And at gleam of his eye
    Not a soul would suppose

He had stooped with great thum...

Walter De La Mare

The Waggoner - Canto Third

Right gladly had the horses stirred,
When they the wished-for greeting heard,
The whip's loud notice from the door,
That they were free to move once more.
You think, those doings must have bred
In them disheartening doubts and dread;
No, not a horse of all the eight,
Although it be a moonless night,
Fears either for himself or freight;
For this they know (and let it hide,
In part, the offences of their guide)
That Benjamin, with clouded brains,
Is worth the best with all their pains;
And, if they had a prayer to make,
The prayer would be that they may take
With him whatever comes in course,
The better fortune or the worse;
That no one else may have business near them,
And, drunk or sober, he may steer them.
So, forth in dauntless mood they fare,...

William Wordsworth