Trees by Charles Simic

Trees like country preachers
On their rostrums,
Their arms raised in blessing
Over the evening fields.
Every leaf now, every weed
Helping the night
Darken and quiet the world
For what's to come.
CHARLES SIMIC

Love of Nature in me by John ruskin,

My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,—
if I could have been invisible, all the better. I was absolutely
interested in men and their ways, as I was interested in marmots
and chamois, in tomtits and trout.

If only they would stay still and let me look at them, and not get
into their holes and up their heights! The living inhabitation of
the world — the grazing and nesting in it, — the spiritual power
of the air, the rocks, the waters, to be in the midst of it, and
rejoice and wonder at it,and help it if I could, — happier if
it needed no help of mine, —

this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all
that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned.
John ruskin,Praeterita

Free Love by William Blake

Does spring hide its joy,
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower sow by night,
Or the plowman in darkness plough?

Break this heavy chain,
That does freeze my bones around!
Selfish, vain,
Eternal bane,
That free love with bondage bound.
William Blake,Earth's Answer

Love Songs by Sara Teasdale/inspirational Love Poems

Music:
HAUSER - Mia & Sebastian’s Theme (La La Land)

Spring Night
Sara Teasdale

THE park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,—

I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,—
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?

Dew
Sara Teasdale

AS dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;

As dawn leaves the dry grass bright
And the tangled weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem
On each of their seeds;

So has your love, my lover,
Fresh as the dawn,
Made me a shining road
To travel on,
Set every common sight
Of tree or stone
Delicately alight
For me alone.

Enough

IT is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night
The same great roof of stars is dim.

I do not hope to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea --
It is enough to feel his love
Blow by like music over me.

Riches

I HAVE no riches but my thoughts,
Yet these are wealth enough for me;
My thoughts of you are golden coins
Stamped in the mint of memory;

And I must spend them all in song,
For thoughts, as well as gold, must be
Left on the hither side of death
To gain their immortality.

Rise Up Rooted by Rainer Maria Rilke

If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again...

to learn from the things,
because they are in God's hart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
Rainer Maria Rilke

The power of Nature by William Wordsworth

And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy.
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
William Wordsworth

Nature: Noble inclinations by Washington Irving

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery
that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it,
and fills it with noble inclinations.
Washington Irving

Perhaps The truth depends on by Wallace Stevens

Perhaps
The truth depends on a walk around a lake,
A composing as the body tires,
a stop To see hepatica, a stop to watch
A definition growing certain and
A wait within that certainty, a rest
In the swags of pine-trees bordering the lake.
Perhaps there are times of inherent excellence.
Wallace Stevens

Let's Live For Each Other

Nothing in the Nature lives for itself.
Rivers don't drink their own water.
Trees don't eat their own fruit.
Sun doesn't give heat for itself.
Flowers don't spread fragrance for themselves.

Living For Others, is the rule of Nature

Kjerag from the air / Norway

Give Me The Flute By Khalil Gibran

Music:
OMAR AKRAM-Secret Journey

Give me the flute
Khalil Gibran

Give me the flute and sing,
immortality lies in a song
and even after we’ve perished
the flute continues to lament.

Have you taken refuge in the woods
away from places, like me,
followed streams on their courses
and climbed up the rocks?

Did you ever bathe in a perfume
and dry yourself with a light
drink the dawn as wine
rarefied in goblets of ether?

Give me the flute then and sing,
the best of prayer is song
and even when life perishes
the flute continues to lament.

Have you spent an evening
as I have done, among vines,
where the golden candelabra
clusters hang down?

Did you sleep on the grass at night
and let space be your blanket,
abstaining from all that will come
forgetful of all that has passed?

Give the flute then and sing,
in singing is Justice for the heart
and even after every guilt has perished
the flute continues to lament.

Give the flute and sing
forget illness and its cure,
people are nothing but lines
which are scribbled on water.

Whisper of Rose by Erica Caitlin Lee

Let me show you
Sweet smell of a delicate whisper
Behind the vision of gardens
Go and read of your life
Tiny ripping at the heart
Drunk from a rose.
Erica Caitlin Lee

When man walks alone with God by Jack london

When man walks alone with God
Excerpt from"the white silence"
by Jack london

Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity--
the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock
of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artillery--but
the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive
phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears,
the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege,
and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice.

Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of
a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his
is a maggot's life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise
unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance.

And the fear of death, of God, of the universe comes over him--
the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for
immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence--
it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.

Me & The Sea Quotes

I'm the lonely voyager standing on deck, and she's the sea.
The sky is a blanket of gray, merging with the gray sea off
on the horizon. It's hard to tell the difference between sea
and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings
of the heart.
Haruki Murakami

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea,
and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses
me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everthing in me
that is bewildered and confused.
Rainer Maria Rilke

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.
The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding
the body in its soft, close embrace.
Kate Chopin

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky;
there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
Victor Hugo

Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean
refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times
it's sent away.
Sarah Kay

Contemplation On Man & Nature :The Prelude Poem (Excerpt) by William Wordsworth

Music:
Secret Garden - Silence speaks

Excerpt From THE PRELUDE
William Wordsworth

OH there is blessing in this gentle freezer,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.

What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale
Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!

Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life),
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course?

Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within
A correspondent breeze, that gently moved
With quickening virtue, but is now become
A tempest, a redundant energy,
Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
And their congenial powers, that, while they join
In breaking up a long-continued frost,
Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
Of active days urged on by flying hours,--
Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
Matins and vespers of harmonious verse!

Thus far, O Friend! did I, not used to make
A present joy the matter of a song,
Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
That would not be forgotten, and are here
Recorded: to the open fields I told
A prophecy: poetic numbers came
Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
A renovated spirit singled out,
Such hope was mine, for holy services.
My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's
Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
To both I listened, drawing from them both
A cheerful confidence in things to come.

One end at least hath been attained; my mind
Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
Through later years the story of my life.
The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme
Single and of determined bounds; and hence
I choose it rather at this time, than work
Of ampler or more varied argument,
Where I might be discomfited and lost:
And certain hopes are with me, that to thee
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!

For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--

If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Love OF Life by Friedrich Nietzsche

And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles,
and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness.
To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting
about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song.
Friedrich Nietzsche" Thus Spake Zarathustra"

Bird Music by Rose Terry Cooke

Bird Music
Rose Terry Cooke

Singer of priceless melody,
Underguerdoned chorister of air,
Who from the lithe top of the tree
Pourest at will thy music rare,
As if a sudden brook laughed down the hill-side there.

The purple-blossomed fields of grass,
Waved sea-like to the idle wind,
Thick daisies that the stars surpass,
Being as fair and far more kind;--
All sweet uncultured things thy wild notes bring to mind.

When that enraptured overflow
Of singing into silence dies,
Thy rapid fleeting pinions show
Where all thy spell of sweetness lies
Gathered in one small nest from the wide earth and skies.

Unconscious of thine audience,
Careless of praises as of blame,
In simpleness and innocence,
Thy gentle life pursues its aim,
So tender and serene, that we might blush for shame.

The patience of thy brooding wings
That droop in silence day by day,
The little crowd of callow things
That joy for weariness repay,--
These are the living spring, thy song the fountain's spray.

Be Like The Tree

The tree does not bother about flowers that fall.
It is always busy making new flowers blossom.
Life is not about what we lost so far,
it's about what we can still grow.

Inspirational Earth day Quote:Heaven Through Earth by Michelangelo

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven
unless it be through Earth's loveliness.
Michelangelo

I am in love with This World byJohn Burrough/Earth Day Quote

The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon
the beauty and wonder of the world.
I have loved the feel of the grass under my feet,
and the sound of the running streams by my side.
The hum of the wind in the treetops has always
been good music to me, and the face of the fields
has often comforted me more than the faces of men.

I am in love with this world. . . I have tilled
its soil, I have gathered its harvest, I have waited
upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown.
I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters,
crossed its deserts, felt the sting if its frosts, the oppression of its
heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have
beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.
John Burrough