Rain by Edward Thomas

Rain by Edward Thomas

by | Oct 21, 2025 | Emerald Book Club, Poems, Poetic Flows Podcast, Poetry, Rain Poems

Rain By Edward Thomas

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain

On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me

Remembering again that I shall die

And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks

For washing me cleaner than I have been

Since I was born into this solitude.

Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:

But here I pray that none whom once I loved

Is dying tonight or lying still awake

Solitary, listening to the rain,

Either in pain or thus in sympathy

Helpless among the living and the dead,

Like a cold water among broken reeds,

Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,

Like me who have no love which this wild rain

Has not dissolved except the love of death,

The Darkling Thrush

The Darkling Thrush

by | Oct 13, 2025 | Emerald Book Club, Poetic Flows Podcast, Poetry, Winter Poems

The Darkling Thrush

By Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

      When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

      The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

      Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware.

Autumn by John Keats Poem

Autumn by John Keats Poem

by | Oct 6, 2025 | Emerald Book Club, Life Poems, Nature Poems, Poetic Flows Podcast, Poetry

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

   Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Be Thankful

Be Thankful

by | Oct 2, 2025 | Emerald Book Club, Gratitude Poems, Life Poems, Poetry

Be Thankful
 
Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
 
Be thankful when you don’t know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.
 
Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.
 
Be thankful for your limitations,
because they give you opportunities for improvement.
 
Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character.
 
Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.
 
Be thankful when you’re tired and weary,
because it means you’ve made a difference.
 
It’s easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who
are also thankful for the setbacks.
 
Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles,
and they can become your blessings.

by Author Unknown

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

by | Sep 8, 2025 | Emerald Book Club, Poetic Flows Podcast, Poetry

“Invictus” is a short poem by English poet William Ernest Henley. Henley wrote it in 1875, and in 1888 he published it in his first volume of poems, Book of Verses, in the section titled “Life and Death”.

INVICTUS 👏🙏

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul

June’s Coming by John Burroughs

June’s Coming by John Burroughs

by | Jun 3, 2025 | Nature Poems, Poems, Poetic Flows Podcast, Poetry, Summer Poems

Now have come the shining days
When field and wood are robed anew,
And o’er the world a silver haze
Mingles the emerald with the blue.

Summer now doth clothe the land
In garments free from spot or stain—
The lustrous leaves, the hills untanned,
The vivid meads, the glaucous grain.

The day looks new, a coin unworn,
Freshly stamped in heavenly mint;
The sky keeps on its look of morn;
Of age and death there is no hint.

How soft the landscape near and far!
A shining veil the trees infold;
The day remembers moon and star;
A silver lining hath its gold.

Again I see the clover bloom,
And wade in grasses lush and sweet;
Again has vanished all my gloom
With daisies smiling at my feet.

Again from out the garden hives
The exodus of frenzied bees;
The humming cyclone onward drives,
Or finds repose amid the trees.

At dawn the river seems a shade—
A liquid shadow deep as space;
But when the sun the mist has laid,
A diamond shower smites its face.

The season’s tide now nears its height,
And gives to earth an aspect new;
Now every shoal is hid from sight,
With current fresh as morning dew.