Poetry Corner
(an occasional poem from my personal favourites)
The West Wind
by
John Masefield
It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills.
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.
It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine.
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,
And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.
"Will ye not come home, brother? Ye have been long away,
It's April, and blossom time, and white is the May;
And bright is the sun brother, and warm is the rain,—
Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again?
"The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run.
It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain,
To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.
"Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,
So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,"
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.
It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes' song,
In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.
Previous:
The Listeners - Walter de la Mare
The Way Through the Woods - Rudyard Kipling
A Forsaken Garden - Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Rider at the Gate - John Masefield
Meeting at Night - Robert Browning
In Flanders Fields - John McCrae
The Isle - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2 (Winter) - William Shakespeare
little tree - E.E. Cummings
The Shortest Day - Susan Cooper
My Last Duchess - Robert Browning
The Elfin Artist - Alfred Noyes
Cargoes - John Masefield
The Splendour Falls - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Donkey - G. K. Chesterton
All in green went my love riding - E.E. Cummings
Arethusa - Percy Bysshe Shelley
The King's Breakfast - A.A. Milne
Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll
The Loom of Years - Alfred Noyes
Now Winter Nights Enlarge - Thomas Campion
It sifts from leaden sieves - Emily Dickinson