WALKS IN A FOREST
from Spring

While thus the imprisoned leaves and waking flowers
Burst from their tombs, the birds that lurked unseen
Amid the hibernal shade, in busy tribes
Pour their forgotten multitudes, and catch
New life, new rapture, from the smile of spring.
The oak’s dark canopy, the moss-grown thorns,
Flutter with hurried pinions, and resound
With notes that suit a forest; some, perchance,
Rude singly, yet with sweeter notes combined
In unison harmonious; notes that seek,
In language vocal to the listening wood,
The fears and hopes, the griefs and joys, that heave

The feathered breast.

By: Thomas Gisborne (31 October 1758 – 24 March 1846) was an Anglican divine, priest and poet. He was a member of the Clapham Sect, who fought for the abolition of the slave trade in England.

 

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths,
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other’s song,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all –
Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many glowworm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher.

 

"Nature" is what we see --


The Hill -- the Afternoon --


Squirrel -- Eclipse --the Bumble bee --


Nay -- Nature is Heaven --


Nature is what we hear --


The Bobolink -- the Sea --


Thunder -- the Cricket --


Nay -- Nature is Harmony --


Nature is what we know --


Yet have no art to say --


So impotent Our Wisdom is


To her Simplicity.

By: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet.