To Margot

When I go free,
I think 'twill be
A night of stars and snow,
And the wild fires of frost shall light
My footsteps as I go;
Nobody - nobody will be there
With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair
Dance burning through the night.

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

The Supper

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Quarry

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Longlegs

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Old Men

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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The Little Salamander

TO MARGOT


When I go free,
I think 'twill be
A night of stars and snow,
And the wild fires of frost shall light
My footsteps as I go;
Nobody - nobody will be there
With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair
Dance burning through the night.




VOICES


Who is it calling by the darkened river
    Where the moss lies smooth and deep,
And the dark trees lean unmoving arms,
    Silent and vague in sleep,
And the bright-heeled constellations pass
    In splendour through the gloom;
Who is it calling o'er the darkened river
        In music, "Come!"?

Who is it wandering in the summer meadows
    Where the children stoop and play
In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning
 ...

Walter De La Mare

Winter

Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,
Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.

Walter De La Mare

The Fairy In Winter

There was a Fairy - flake of winter -
Who, when the snow came, whispering, Silence,
Sister crystal to crystal sighing,
Making of meadow argent palace,
    Night a star-sown solitude,
Cried 'neath her frozen eaves, "I burn here!"

Wings diaphanous, beating bee-like,
Wand within fingers, locks enspangled,
Icicle foot, lip sharp as scarlet,
She lifted her eyes in her pitch-black hollow -
Green as stalks of weeds in water -
Breathed: stirred.

Rilled from her heart the ichor, coursing,
Flamed and awoke her slumbering magic.
Softlier than moth's her pinions trembled;
Out into blackness, light-like, she flittered,
Leaving her hollow cold, forsaken.

In air, o'er crystal, rang twangling night-wind.
Bare, rimed pine-woods murmured lament.

Walter De La Mare

Snow

No breath of wind,
No gleam of sun -
Still the white snow
Swirls softly down -
Twig and bough
And blade and thorn
All in an icy
Quiet, forlorn.
Whispering, nestling,
Through the air,
On sill and stone,
Roof - everywhere,
It heaps its powdery
Crystal flakes,
Of every tree
A mountain makes:
Till pale and faint
At shut of day,
Stoops from the West
One wintry ray.
Then, feathered in fire,
Where ghosts the moon,
A robin shrills
His lonely tune;
And from her dark-gnarled
Yew-tree lair
Flits she who had been
In hiding there.

Walter De La Mare

Sleeping Beauty

The scent of bramble fills the air,
    Amid her folded sheets she lies,
The gold of evening in her hair,
    The blue of morn shut in her eyes.

How many a changing moon hath lit
    The unchanging roses of her face!
Her mirror ever broods on it
    In silver stillness of the days.

Oft flits the moth on filmy wings
    Into his solitary lair;
Shrill evensong the cricket sings
    From some still shadow in her hair.

In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood,
    She sleeps in lovely loneliness,
Half-folded like an April bud
    On winter-haunted trees.

Walter De La Mare

Winter

Green Mistletoe!
Oh, I remember now
A dell of snow,
Frost on the bough;
None there but I:
Snow, snow, and a wintry sky.

None there but I,
And footprints one by one,
Zigzaggedly,
Where I had run;
Where shrill and powdery
A robin sat in the tree.

And he whistled sweet;
And I in the crusted snow
With snow-clubbed feet
Jigged to and fro,
Till, from the day,
The rose-light ebbed away.

And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;
And small and rare
The night-frost fell
In the calm and misty dell.

And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.

And the sprawlin...

Walter De La Mare