“Snail”
Little snail,
Dreaming you go.
Weather and rose
Is all you know.
Weather and rose
Is all you see,
Drinking
The dewdrop’s
Mystery.
by Langston Hughes
From Collected Poems. Copyright ©1994 by The Estate
of Langston Hughes
Tag: nature
I have a rendezvous with Life, In days I hope will come, Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind, Ere voices sweet grow dumb. I have a rendezvous with Life, When Spring’s first heralds hum. Sure some would cry it’s better far To crown their days with sleep Than face the road, the wind and rain, To heed the calling deep. Though wet nor blow nor space I fear, Yet fear I deeply, too, Lest Death should meet and claim me ere I keep Life’s rendezvous.
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!
This is the spot:—how mildly does the sun Shine in between the fading leaves! the air In the habitual silence of this wood Is more than silent: and this bed of heath, Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place? Come!—let me see thee sink into a dream Of quiet thoughts,—protracted till thine eye Be calm as water when the winds are gone And no one can tell whither.—my sweet friend! We two have had such happy hours together That my heart melts in me to think of it.
Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day—
I softly sing.
And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
And sing, and sing.
I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
And I can sing.
NIÁGARA
Templad mi lira, dádmela, que siento
En mi alma estremecida y agitada
Arder la inspiración. ¡Oh! ¡cuánto tiempo
En tinieblas pasó, sin que mi frente
Brillase con su luz…! Niágara undoso,
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of
bronze
Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear a solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.
My tearful eyes my soul’s deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips,
And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.
O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
That I may sight and check that speeding bark
Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?
The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I’m singing here to you, love;
You’re dreaming there in Paris.
But this is Nature’s law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love;
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love.
Still halting o’er his numbers.
I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature’s poets, wake, love,
Why should a man be singing?
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