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Year 1 Poetry Anthology: June

Compiled and arranged by the AmblesideOnline Advisory, April, 2005 with revisions made August, 2021

Purchase AO's poetry Anthology, Volume 1: Beginnings, which contains the entire 220 of AO's Year 1 poems for all twelve months, in paperback or Kindle ($amzn) (K)

     01 The Fountain, by James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891
     02 The Old Bridge, by Hilda Conkling, 1910-1986 (publshed 1922)
     03 Maker of Heaven and Earth, by Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-1895
     04 The Sea Gypsy, by Richard Hovey, 1864-1900
     05 The Fly, by William Blake, 1757-1827
     06 I Meant To Do My Work Today, by Richard Le Gallienne 1866-1947
     07 The city mouse, by Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894
     08 Trees, by Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918
     09 Tit for Tat, by Christopher Morley, 1890-1957 (published 1921)
     10 Pippa's Song, by Robert Browning, 1812-1889
     11 The Rabbit, by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, 1881-1941
     12 Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894
     13 The Tide Rises, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882
     14 Woodman, Spare That Tree, by George Pope Morris, 1802-1864
     15 The Owl, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892
     16 Nicholas Nye, by Walter de la Mare, 1873-1956
     17 Dusk in June, by Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933
     18 My Speckled Hen, adapted from the folk collection of Thomas W. Talley, 1870-1952
     19 Evening, by Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
     20 The Way Through the Woods, by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936
     21 Good Night and Good Morning, by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, 1809-1885

Click here to view an Index of Poets included in AO's Year 1 Anthology.

01 The Fountain, by James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891

Into the sunshine,
      Full of the light,
Leaping and flashing
      From morn till night!
Into the moonlight,
      Whiter than snow,
Waving so flower-like
      When the winds blow!
Into the starlight,
      Rushing in spray,
Happy at midnight,
      Happy by day!
Ever in motion,
      Blithesome and cheery.
Still climbing heavenward,
      Never aweary;--
Glad of all weathers,
      Still seeming best,
Upward or downward,
      Motion thy rest;--
Full of a nature
      Nothing can tame,
Changed every moment,
      Ever the same;--
Ceaseless aspiring,
      Ceaseless content,
Darkness or sunshine
      Thy element;--
Glorious fountain!
      Let my heart be
Fresh, changeful, constant,
      Upward, like thee!

02 The Old Bridge, by Hilda Conkling, 1910-1986
      from Poems By a Little Girl, 1920

The old bridge has a wrinkled face.
He bends his back
For us to go over.
He moans and weeps
But we do not hear.
Sorrow stands in his face
For the heavy weight and worry
Of people passing.
The trees drop their leaves into the water;
The sky nods to him.
The leaves float down like small ships
On the blue surface
Which is the sky.
He is not always sad:
He smiles to see the ships go down
And the little children
Playing on the river banks.

03 Maker of Heaven and Earth, by Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-1895

All things bright and beautiful,
      All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
      The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
      Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
      He made their tiny wings.

The rich man in his castle,
      The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
      And ordered their estate.

The purple-headed mountain,
      The river running by,
The sunset, and the morning,
      That brightens up the sky;

The cold wind in the winter,
      The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
      He made them every one.

The tall trees in the greenwood,
      The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
      We gather every day;--

He gave us eyes to see them,
      And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
      Who has made all things well.

04 The Sea Gypsy, by Richard Hovey, 1864-1900

I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.

05 The Fly, by William Blake, 1757-1827

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly.
If I live,
Or if I die.

06 I Meant To Do My Work Today, by Richard Le Gallienne 1866-1947
      appeared in The Melody of Earth, 1918

I meant to do my work to-day
     But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
     And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
     Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand
     So what could I do but laugh and go?

07 The city mouse lives in a house, by Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

The city mouse lives in a house;--
      The garden mouse lives in a bower,
He's friendly with the frogs and toads,
      And sees the pretty plants in flower.

The city mouse eats bread and cheese;--
      The garden mouse eats what he can;
We will not grudge him seeds and stalks,
      Poor little timid furry man.

08 Trees, by Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree,

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
and lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

09 Tit for Tat, by Christopher Morley
      from Chimneysmoke, 1921

I often pass a gracious tree
      Whose name I can't identify,
But still I bow, in courtesy
      It waves a bough, in kind reply.

I do not know your name, O tree
      (Are you a hemlock or a pine?)
But why should that embarrass me?
      Quite probably you don't know mine.

10 Pippa's Song, by Robert Browning, 1812-1889

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven--
All's right with the world!

11 The Rabbit, by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, 1881-1941
      from Under The Tree, 1922

When they said the time to hide was mine,
I hid back under a thick grape vine.

And while I was still for the time to pass,
A little gray thing came out of the grass.

He hopped his way through the melon bed
And sat down close by a cabbage head.

He sat down close where I could see,
And his big still eyes looked hard at me,

His big eyes bursting out of the rim,
And I looked back very hard at him.

12 Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Who has seen the wind?
      Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
      The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
      Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
      The wind is passing by.

13 The Tide Rises, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

14 Woodman, Spare That Tree, by George Pope Morris, 1802-1864

Woodman, spare that tree!
      Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
      And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
      That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
      Thy axe shall harm it not!

That old familiar tree,
      Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea,
      And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
      Cut not its earth-bound ties;
O, spare that aged oak,
      Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy
      I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
      Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
      My father pressed my hand--
Forgive this foolish tear,
      But let that old oak stand!

My heart-strings round thee cling,
      Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
      And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
      And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I've a hand to save,
      Thy axe shall hurt it not.

15 The Owl, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892

When cats run home and light is come,
      And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
      And the whirring sail goes round,
      And the whirring sail goes round;
            Alone and warming his five wits,
            The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
      And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
      Twice or thrice his roundelay,
      Twice or thrice his roundelay;
            Alone and warming his five wits,
            The white owl in the belfry sits.

16 Nicholas Nye, by Walter de la Mare, 1873-1956
      from Peacock Pie, 1913

Thistle and darnell and dock grew there,
      And a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl
      In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,
      While the birds went twittering by,
And nobody there my lone to share
            But Nicholas Nye.

Nicholas Nye was lean and gray,
      Lame of leg and old,
More than a score of donkey's years
      He had been since he was foaled;
He munched the thistles, purple and spiked,
      Would sometimes stoop and sigh,
And turn to his head, as if he said,
            "Poor Nicholas Nye!"

Alone with his shadow he'd drowse in the meadow,
      Lazily swinging his tail,
At break of day he used to bray,--
      Not much too hearty and hale;
But a wonderful gumption was under his skin,
      And a clean calm light in his eye,
And once in a while; he'd smile:--
            Would Nicholas Nye.

Seem to be smiling at me, he would,
      From his bush, in the corner, of may,--
Bony and ownerless, widowed and worn,
      Knobble-kneed, lonely and gray;
And over the grass would seem to pass
      'Neath the deep dark blue of the sky,
Something much better than words between me
            And Nicholas Nye.

But dusk would come in the apple boughs,
      The green of the glow-worm shine,
The birds in nest would crouch to rest,
      And home I'd trudge to mine;
And there, in the moonlight, dark with dew,
      Asking not wherefore nor why,
Would brood like a ghost, and as still as a post,
            Old Nicholas Nye.

17 Dusk in June, by Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933
      from Rivers to the Sea, 1915

Evening, and all the birds
     In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
     For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,
     The few first stars are white,
Oh let me like the birds
     Sing before night.

18 My Speckled Hen, adapted from the folk collection of Thomas W. Talley, 1870-1952
from Negro Folk Rhymes, 1922

Somebody stole my speckled hen.
They left me mighty poor.
Ev'ry day she layed three eggs,
An' Sunday she lay four.
Somebody stole my speckled hen.
She crowed at my back door.
Feathers shone just like the sun;
Those robbers grudged her more.
The whistling gal, an' a crowin' hen,
They always come to a bad end.
Stop that whistling; go on an' sing!
'Member my hen with her shining wing.

19 Evening, by Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

The Crickets sang
And set the Sun
And Workmen finished one by one
      Their Seam the Day upon.

The low Grass loaded with the Dew
The Twilight stood, as Strangers do
With Hat in Hand, polite and new
      To stay as if, or go.

A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
      And so the Night became.

20 The Way Through the Woods, by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936
      from Rewards and Fairies, 1910

They shut the road through the woods
     Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
     And now you would never know
There was once a path through the woods
     Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
     And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
     That, where the ringdove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
     There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
     Of a summer evening late,
When the night air cools on the trout-ring'd pools
     Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods
     Because they see so few),
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet
     And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
     Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
     As though they perfectly knew
     The old lost road through the woods . . .
But there is no road through the woods.

21 Good Night and Good Morning, by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, 1809-1885

A fair little girl sat under a tree,
Sewing as long as her eyes could see;
Then smoothed her work, and folded it right,
And said, "Dear work, good night! good night!"

Such a number of rooks came over her head,
Crying, "Caw! Caw!" on their way to bed;
She said, as she watched their curious flight,
"Little black things, good night! good night!"

The horses neighed, and the oxen lowed,
The sheep's "Bleat! bleat!" came over the road;
All seeming to say, with a quiet delight,
"Good little girl, good night! good night!"

She did not say to the sun, "Good night!"
Though she saw him there like a ball of light,
For she knew he had God's time to keep
All over the world, and never could sleep.

The tall pink foxglove bowed his head,
The violets curtsied and went to bed;
And good little Lucy tied up her hair,
And said on her knees her favourite prayer.

And while on her pillow she softly lay,
She knew nothing more till again it was day;
And all things said to the beautiful sun,
"Good morning! good morning! our work is begun!"

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