Post up your favorite wilderness poem.

The Man From Snowy River - Banjo Paterson
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast;
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony—three parts thoroughbred at least
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry—just the sort that won't say die
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop—lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited, sad and wistful—only Clancy stood his friend
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.

"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough;
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

So he went; they found the horses by the big mimosa clump,
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."

So Clancy rode to wheel them—he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
no man can hold them down the other side."

When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull
It well might make the boldest hold their breath;
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flint-stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as they climbed the farther hill,
And the watchers on the mountain, standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely; he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
They lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges—but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam;
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten; then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reed-beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The Man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.




Maybe not a "wilderness" poem as such, but certainly my favourite. I've spent a fair bit of time on horseback up in those same hills and the author, Banjo, was raised on a sheep station not far from me and, in later years, even drank in the same pub I did although a few years before I actually got there. :)


BTW, if you need any translations let me know. :D



​
 
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

D.H. Lawrence





New World Order



The world of politics and government is the legacy of civilized man. On the stage of history the ebb and flow of past empires has written the story of history in limestone, iron, asphalt and blood. Shards of civilizations past bleach in the sun like the bones of the buffalo.

Such is the fate of all giants.

Soon there may no place for the individual warrior, only the drone soldier.

Soon there may be no forests to pursue the white tail deer.

Where is the horse and rider against the pale light of a dying sun?

The evening star rises. The fire grows dim.

In the pale light I see my weapons before me. All that I am, joy, sorrow, hope, rage, paranoia, are arrows in the quiver of my mind. Soon it will be time to string my bow and hunt once more. I know that what I shoot is what returns to me.

My weapon is the power of choice. If all I see is sorrow it is time to sing the death song. Today would be as good as any to die.

To choose life is to believe in hope. To believe that ice choked rivers will melt into spring, that the tree brothers will make new leaves even though they are losing them now.

So long as the grass grows and the rivers flow I will wait one more season to sing my death song. One more season to teach my children to listen to the song of the bow string.

The evening star is rising now and soon will come the moon. Another chunk of wood added to the fire and a shower of sparks rises.

The world of men can not change that. No black helicopters or politics will hold back the tides. No evil empire will stop the seasons. Only the world of men will pass away, its bones will bleach in the sun.

Such is the fate of all giants.

Riddle of Steel
 
Last edited:
William Wordsworth

A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.


TF
 
The Skonk I Hunt

I hunt de bear, I hunt de moose,
An' sometam hunt de rat;
Las' week I make ma hax an' go
For hunt a skonk polecat.
Ma fren' Beel say he's ver' fine fur,
An' sametam good to heat;
I tell ma wife I get fur coat,
Sametam I get some meat.
I walk 'bout three, five, six mile,
An' then I feel strong smell--
Tink mebbe that dam skonk she die
An' fur coat gone to hell.
Purrsoon bime-by I see that skonk
Close up by one beeg tree;
I sneek up ver' close behin';
I tink he no see me.
Bime-by I'm ver', ver' close,
I raise ma hax up high,
Dat goddom skonk he up an' plunk--
T'row something in ma eye.
Oh, Sacre Bleu! I tink I blin';
Jees Chris! I cannot see;
I run roun' an' roun' an' roun'
'Till I bump in goddam tree.
Bime-by I drop ma hax away
An' light out for de shack,
I tink 'bout million skonk
He clim' up on ma back.
Ma wife she meet me at de door,
She sic on me de dog;
She say, "You no sleep here tonight,
Go out an' sleep with hog."
I try to get in that pig-pen,
Jees Chris! Now what you tink?
Dat goddam hog no stan' for that
On 'count of awful stink.
No more I go for hunt de skonk,
To get his fur an' meat;
For if he peese he smell so bad;
Jees Chris! What if he sheet!
 
A dark one....

"Cancer


How do you explain the cancer that eats at your soul?

How do you explain that you fear that it will kill you?

How do you tell your friends, your loved ones, that it laughs at their love, and pulses malignly no matter how tightly they hold you?

How do you relate, that even on the brightest days, the best, most wonderful days of your life, it mutters a reality so dark, that you think you will choke?

How can you relate, that some days you wish tomorrow wouldn't come?

Can they understand the shame you feel, hiding your fears, for fear that their compassion will only open the wound deeper?

And so you sit, in your chair, on the edge of your bed, those that love you just inches away, but in those inches, a yawning gulf, a chasm without measure.

And when you cry, you cry silently, holding your breath, until it subsides, and you can go back to holding on to the thin thread of hope that someday you will experience a miracle, a day without the gnawing feeling that this is as good as it gets."
 
and Museful.....

"I went out and meditated with the fire-scarred tree on the slope by the river.

We stood and regarded each other for time indeterminate,
communicating in a language expressed by the way the wind moved us,
back and forth, one side and the other side.
We spoke of years, and things unsaid,
of things understood but not thought of.
We spoke of the miles and the years,
of the moments that cannot be shared,
because you don't want to.
This tree and I, standing tall, looking out over the river, scarred by fire, moved by wind.
One.

As we stood, he caused me to regard the younger trees over the other side of the river.
Standing together, some bent twice by the river,
the seasonal pull of current, the push of the stream, standing still.
Now swayed by the wind, moving to and fro, standing.

And I understood.

Fire, River, Wind and yet we stand. "
 
There once was an old hermit named dave, who found a dead wh-re in his cave. She was uglier than sh-t, and minus one t-t -, but think of the money he saved.

(( This is not Whine & Cheese. ))
 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

surely my favorite poem, one I memorized at the age of three, My dad reading it to me and me repeating it back.
 
Two of my own.

whimpering softly

softly the old wolf whimpers as he dreams
vaguely remembering hunting long ago
racing over hillsides, splashing through the streams
running in the rain, plunging into snow

seizing prey in triumph as he hears their screams
never fighting nature, going with the flow

life no longer what it was, only what it seems​

This is a municipal lake, boating and fishing, with a lightly wooded trail around it.
Highway alongside, houses across the road, but deer walking out and staring at me from time to time. :)

Woodland Lake

the sky above
the trees below
the lake before them all

ignore the cars on roads just out of sight
and all this looks like earth before the fall

with grace the waterbirds arrive as fleets of them deploy to feed
ducks dabble as swans cruise by and geese glide beside every reed​
 
This may not be about wilderness, but it always evokes wilderness images in my head. Also a good lesson on preparedness. :D

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Click to expand...
 
More Quotes than poems really... I have always liked these.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. ~John Burroughs
 
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes,By the deep sea, and music in its roar:I love not man the less, but Nature more,From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before,To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

poem by Lord Byron
 
O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm.

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake - The Sick Rose - 1789


Double whammy of internal and external wilderness. Either a person losing their personality and spirit through conformity to others, or England losing its spirit and character due to complicity to the will of external agents. There you go nurture and nature.
 
Talfuchre said:
William Wordsworth

A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.


TF
Click to expand...


Ha, I often recall Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a clod" when I'm roaming hills on a clear day with a long smoke.
 
Wendall Berry is my personal favorite..I also recomend from him, "the mad farmers liberation front"..but for this one I am gonna have to go with the:


The Peace of Wild Things


When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry
 
Not a poem, really, but a few lines from Thoreau's Walden:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

Always inspiring, whether I am in the woods or not.

All the best,

- Mike
 
I just got an email ad today that surprised me. It only mentions the product peripherally. (See if you can guess ...)

Per mainstream media, the juxtaposition is striking. Is Armageddon around the corner? Or will Hope (the winner of the election) prevail? While we await our fate, what are we to do?

Rather than sit paralyzed, I decided to put on my hat (always an instant mood changer) and get out of the house. I headed for a county park that I had never visited. What I found there was not aware of our teetering world: an American Kestrel, a White-tailed Kite, Flickers, a Common Yellowthroat, dabbling light on a small pond, quiet trails save for the songs of sparrows.

The lesson: perspective equals relief. If Hope triumphs, the contemplative exploration of our stunning natural world will remain what I most enjoy. If it’s Doom, this is the best place to be broke.​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top