Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,And drink you, drink you, drink you. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from “If,” Picked Poems. (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1912)
Category: Traditionalism
Walt Whitman
A NOISELESS, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing,… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Robert Frost
Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove. — Robert Frost, from “To Earthward,” The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged (Henry Holt, 1979)
Robert Frost
Hyla Brook By June our brook’s run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow)— Or flourished… Continue reading Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)— Though some savants make earth include the sky; And blue so far above us comes so… Continue reading Robert Frost
Walt Whitman
Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting: Here I shade and hide my thoughts—I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems. — Walt Whitman, “Here the Frailest Leaves of Me,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855
Walt Whitman
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing… Continue reading Walt Whitman
Robert Frost
My November Guest My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walked the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s… Continue reading Robert Frost
Robert Frost
I learned to know / the love of bare November days, — Robert Frost, from “My November Guest,” The Complete Poems ( Henry Holt & Co, 1949)
Henry David Thoreau
Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. — Henry David Thoreau, Walden. (Princeton University Press; 150th Anniversary edition with a New introduction by John Updike edition April 18, 2004)… Continue reading Henry David Thoreau
The Vale of Soul-Making 