Words.

When violets were springing
    And sunshine filled the day,
And happy birds were singing
    The praises of the May,
A word came to me, blighting
    The beauty of the scene,
And in my heart was winter,
    Though all the trees were green.

Now down the blast go sailing
    The dead leaves, brown and sere;
The forests are bewailing
    The dying of the year;
A word comes to me, lighting
    With rapture all the air,
And in my heart is summer,
    Though all the trees are bare.

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

Love's Prayer.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Blondine.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Student-Song.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Religion And Doctrine.

John Hay, 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.

On The Bluff.

O grandly flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
    In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
    Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever
    The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
    To speak the love they knew?

O stern, impassive River!
O still, unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver
    As the night-winds moan and rave.
From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
And dew swells in the bluebells
    Above her hillside grave.

John Hay

From "A Rhapsody"

Sweet solitude, what joy to be alone--
In wild, wood-shady dell to stay for hours.
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad butterflies and smiling flowers.
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places,
Where not the voice of man our pleasure mars,
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars.

The wind seems calling, though not understood.
A voice is speaking; hark, it louder calls.
It echoes in the far-outstretching wood.
First twas a hum, but now it loudly squalls;
And then the pattering rain begins to fall,
And it is hushed--the fern leaves scarcely shake,
The tottergrass it scarcely stirs at all.
And then the rolling thunder gets awake,
And from black clouds the lightning flashes break.<...

John Clare

May.

Oh the merry May has pleasant hours,
    And dreamily they glide,
As if they floated like the leaves
    Upon a silver tide.
The trees are full of crimson buds,
    And the woods are full of birds,
And the waters flow to music
    Like a tune with pleasant words.

The verdure of the meadow-land
    Is creeping to the hills,
The sweet, blue-bosom'd violets
    Are blowing by the rills;
The lilac has a load of balm
    For every wind that stirs,
And the larch stands green and beautiful
    Amid the sombre firs.

There's perfume upon every wind -
    Music in every tree -
Dews for the moisture-loving flowers -
    Sweets for the sucking bee;
The sick come forth for the healing South,
    The young are gathering flowers;
And...

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Anticipation.

Windy the sky and mad;
Surly the gray March day;
Bleak the forests and sad,
Sad for the beautiful May.

On maples tasseled with red
No blithe bird swinging sung;
The brook in its lonely bed
Complained in an unknown tongue.

We walked in the wasted wood:
Her face as the Spring's was fair,
Her blood was the Spring's own blood,
The Spring's her radiant hair,

And we found in the windy wild
One cowering violet,
Like a frail and tremulous child
In the caked leaves bowed and wet.

And I sighed at the sight, with pain
For the May's warm face in the wood,
May's passions of sun and rain,
May's raiment of bloom and of bud.

But she said when she saw me sad,
"Tho' the world be gloomy as fate,
And we yearn for the day...

Madison Julius Cawein

The Tell-Tale Flowers

And has the Spring's all glorious eye
No lesson to the mind?
The birds that cleave the golden sky--
Things to the earth resigned--
Wild flowers that dance to every wind--
Do they no memory leave behind?

Aye, flowers! The very name of flowers,
That bloom in wood and glen,
Brings Spring to me in Winter's hours,
And childhood's dreams again.
The primrose on the woodland lea
Was more than gold and lands to me.

The violets by the woodland side
Are thick as they could thrive;
I've talked to them with childish pride
As things that were alive:
I find them now in my distress--
They seem as sweet, yet valueless.

The cowslips on the meadow lea,
How have I run for them!
I looked with wild and childish glee
Upon each golden gem:

John Clare

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the mossd cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has oer-brimmd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reapd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares...

John Keats