Winter | The Bard on the Hill

As I went out, a Crow
In a low voice said, “Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax –
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing.”

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Ode To Evening by William Collins

Posted in C-D, Poems of Other Poets, tagged autumn, bard on the hill, dusk, eve, Fancy, friendship, health, Ode To Evening, poems, poetry, science, Spring, summer, twilight, William Collins, Winter on March 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
…Like thy own solemn springs,
…Thy springs, and dying gales,

O nymph reserv’d, while now the bright-hair’d sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
…With brede ethereal wove,
…O’er hang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-ey’d bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
…Or where the beetle winds
…His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises ‘midst the twilight path,
Against the Pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
…Now teach me, maid compos’d,
…To breathe some soften’d strain,

Whose numbers, stealing thro’ my darkning vale
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
…As, musing slow, I hail
…Thy genial lov’d return!

For when thy folding-star arising shews
His play circlet, at his warning lamp
…The fragrant Hours, and elves
…Who slept in flowers the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and lovelier still,
…The pensive Pleasures sweet
…Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm vot’ress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile,
…Or upland fallows grey
…Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blust’ring winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
…That from the mountain’s side,
…Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
…Thy dewy fingers draw
…The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
…While Summer loves to sport,
…Beneath thy ling’ring light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter yelling thro’ the troublous air,
…Affrights thy shrinking train,
…And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lip’d Health
…Thy gentlest influence own,
…And hymn thy fav’rite name!

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Winter by William Shakespeare

Posted in Poems of Other Poets, S, tagged bard on the hill, Dick the shepherd, greasy Joan, icicles, Love's Labor Lost, Marian's nose, milk comes frozen home, parson's saw, poems, poetry, roasted crabs hiss, staring owl, Tom bears logs, tu whit tu who, William Shakespeare, Winter on March 1, 2017| 2 Comments »

…..(from “Love’s Labor Lost”)

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
“Tu-whit, tu-who!”
…..A merry note,
…..While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
“Tu-whit, tu-who!”
…..A merry note,
…..While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

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Overlapping – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

Posted in My Haiku, tagged autumn, bard on the hill, Dennis Allen Lange, fall, fire on ice, haiku, Overlapping, poems, poetry, seasons, Winter, wordpress blog on October 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Winter

—

Two seasons
Autumn and Winter –
Fire on ice.

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photo by Marja Flick-Buijs at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/meRdgn2/Winter+colors

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.
See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/
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The Battle Of Get-Ice-Burg by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Poems, Uncategorized, tagged advance, April, bard on the hill, Civil War, Dennis Lange, February weather in Texas, freeze, he e BBattleaOI-cBiLg, hell, July, march, north, poems, poetry, retreat, south, subjugate, Winter on February 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Mid-February, and it seems
…We bask in April’s heat.
The sullen gray, the cold, the mist
…Are in a long retreat.

And while we welcome warmth’s advance,
…We wonder if this spell
Of early conquering means that
…July we’ll be in hell.

And too, what if the sleeping trees
…Come forth to celebrate,
And Winter marches south again
…To freeze, and subjugate?

I fear that, though it’s pleasant now,
…Of warmth, the tale is more,
And Northern cold and Southern heat’s
…A weather Civil War.

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The Chores by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Poems, tagged bard on the hill, chemistry, cows, Dennis Lange, Einstein, feeding livestock, freezing temperatures, grizzly's paw, home work, mercury dropping, morons, norther, poems, poetry, salmon, senseless, sheep, starred problems math, teacher's thrall, The Chores, traditional verse, Winter, wordpress blog on December 11, 2015| 1 Comment »

In winter when the grain was gone and grass no longer grew,
We’d come back home from school to farm, but I was not yet
…through.
For, waiting was some home work that no teacher e’er assigned –
I had to feed the cows and sheep before I could unwind.
It mattered not the weather; for, in fact, when it was worse,
The sheep with little helpless lambs were first to feel its curse.
And sheep would be quite sheepish if they only had the brains
To know that they were brainless, with no sense to take the pains
To show up for a feeding and some shelter from the cold,
To let the shepherd help them by residing in his fold.

I’d change my clothes from scholar to a rugged winter wear.
I needed it so weather and the feeding pens I’d bear.
I’d head into the pasture for the pesky flock of sheep
Who didn’t have the sense to know I’d food and place to sleep.
Most days they were not driven; one would break and all the rest
Would, brainless, blindly bolt as if the moron knew what’s best.
And I, the two-legged sheepdog, would then run as fast I could
To head them off before they ran back to the distant wood.
For when one broke, then three or four, it was a second more
Ere all the flock fled off as one, like clouds first drop, then pour.

Then after many starts and stops, the stupid sheep would find
The gate where they’d been driven by the guide dog for the blind.
The Einstein cows were often at the barn for cake and hay.
And when they weren’t, I’d honk the horn and they’d be on their way.
The sheep were penned; the cows were not. It’s always lawless fools
Who need a taser, chain, or cell, and many extra rules.
The cows would low to call along the stragglers as they came,
And some would be as anxious for the food as fools for fame.
They’d break into a run and bawl, the placid driven mad.
They’d sense enough to know the food would make them full and
…glad.

The weather was a problem like the last starred one in math;
I sometimes felt its apathy and sometimes felt its wrath.
But one day winter elements were my farm chemistry,
All mixed together in a blast that shook the leave-less tree.
It was a cold day and the front would make it colder still.
I donned a coat, a cap, to ward off winter’s deep’ning chill
And left the house reluctantly ‘neath clouds of sullen gray.
The mercury was falling in the north wind’s one act play.
I knew the cows would come themselves to crowd the fence for food
And wished the sheep would have some sense, for chasing I’d no
…mood.

When sheep all penned and cows come home – the norther filled the
…air.
I pulled my cap down o’er my ears with hands grown cold, since bare.
I fed the cows their hay and cake; got sheep their cottonseed –
I carried, in an icy mist, two buckets for that breed.
Across an empty pen I went, in growing bitter cold.
I set my buckets down so metal gate I could take hold.
And as I reached to open it, my hand froze to the bar.
And there I was in ice and wind with nearest help afar,
A salmon who had jumped the falls, but snatched by grizzly’s paw.
All of a sudden, I was loose! – my warmness made it thaw!

My teacher never asked that I write down what I had learned
From failing at a test that left me shaken and concerned.
But one who fails will only fail if he clings to mistakes,
And does not rise with new resolve and an adjustment makes.
And I could see one must prepare, and for swift changes plan,
For times may come impossible and none is Superman.
Those were some lessons that I learned that I will ne’er forget
For fresh is Winter’s icy grip that I remember yet.
And that one lesson is, perhaps, the greatest of them all –
That learning’s best when one’s mind stays within the Teacher’s thrall.

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Each, In Each by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Poems, tagged bard on the hill, biting bitterness, Dennis Lange, Each In Each, elegant lady, fall, fierce and flushed his face, four seasons, girl flowers in her hair, gloom" >, grumpy man, lad" >, pay tip or fee, poems, poetry, Spring, summer, Winter on September 19, 2015| 3 Comments »

Spring is a skipping pretty girl
…With flowers in her hair,
Remaking all the meadows’ moods;
…By May, she’s twice as fair.

Close on her heels, kin – Summer – comes,
…A lad who likes to race.
He’s bursting with great energy,
…And fierce and flushed his face.

Fall is a lady, elegant –
…Dressed in her finery.
She is a bit aloof: just take
…Or leave her to her spree.

But Winter is a grumpy man;
…And old and gruff he seems.
Both biting bitterness and gloom
…Can be his aged extremes.

As each one comes, treat each one well
…And pay their tip or fee.
Not only will you live in them,
…But each one could you be.

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Sonnet 52 – The Tide Of Spring by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Poems, Sonnets, tagged bard on the hill, Dennis Lange, earth, hemisphere, nature, pining, poems, poetry, Robin Hood, Sonnet 52, Spring, The Tide Of Spring, vernal moon, Winter on March 24, 2015| 2 Comments »

………

Sonnet 52 – The Tide Of Spring

The tide of Spring comes washing through the woods
Pushed by the vernal moon, pulled by our pining.
As welcome as a million Robin Hoods,
The youthful paint’s a feast for our eyes’ dining.

What merriment it puts into our hearts!
What joy that Nature once again is living!
The cold dry husk that’s Earth flies wide apart;
We view the riches it is ever giving.

When Winter leaves a hemisphere behind,
A weight is gone; a burden has been lifted.
Gone is its rude assault on body, mind;
The harshness to another half is shifted.

We’re stirred by Spring since life begins anew;
Hope is fulfilled with the most lovely view.

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photo by Kevin Tuck at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nxHKzle/Woodland+flowers+in+spring ——————–

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