Another of my favorite poems ...

Nothing Gold Can Stay 

by Robert Frost.

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay.

The interesting thing about this poem is that is was practically unknown to most people until a movie 

came out called "The Outsiders".  The main character in the movie spoke the poem out loud, almost 

as a soliloquy.  A lot of kids watched that movie and many of them remembered the poem.  Not that 

it's a poem for kids, but things just worked out that way.

A Bad Landing by Jim Dunlap

A Bad Landing

Green hills against a cobalt sky,
And sunlight, pure as molten gold --
One day of many streaming by --
A starship accidentally shoaled
Upon a long-forgotten world.
No trace of man remained at all
In valleys deep or seashores pearled.
No one extant to hear its call.
An ice age covered every trace
That time had not obliterated --
The home of one eccentric race
Whose destruction was self-orchestrated.
Polluted water, poisoned land,
Destruction on a worldwide scale --
The race that died by its own hand
Had left no one to tell the tale.
A million years elapsed, and yet
No normal life could thrive and grow;
And each day as that great sun set
Marked one more that man would never know.

Author notes

This poem, of course, is more sci-fi than fantasy, but it deals with bad choices that the human race makes daily and the eventual consequences of ignorant and dangerous actions. I guess it could be termed dark since it forshadows the extinction of the human race due to stupidity and greed.

Welcome to my poetic version of reality.

I love poetry ... particularly rhymed poetry.  I hope anyone coming here to look at these pages will share my passion for it.

To start things off, here's a poem that I've loved for many years, and one that is not often seen nowadays.  It's by John Greenleaf Whittier.

In School Days

STILL sits the school-house by the road,

A ragged beggar sleeping;

Around it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry-vines are creeping.

Within, the master's desk is seen,

Deep-scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescoes on its wall;

Its door's worn sill, betraying

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun

Shone over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes,

And low eaves' icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,

And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one who still her steps delayed

When all the school were leaving.

For near it stood the little boy

Her childish favor singled;

His cap pulled low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

To right and left, he lingered;---

As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-checked apron fingered.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt

The soft hand's light caressing,

And heard the tremble of her voice,

As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:

I hate to go above you,

Because,"---the brown eyes lower fell,---

"Because, you see, I love you!"

Still memory to a gray-haired man

That sweet child-face is showing.

Dear girl! the grasses on her grave

Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school,

How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her, because they love him.

• 
  

John Greenleaf Whittier

I will be posting poems of my own and occasionally those of others here from time to time.