Category: Nature

How price the yellow daffodil
Or feeding bird upon my sill?

How judge the real or seeming worth
Of graying stone and greening earth?

What value, if we had to sell
The memory-haunting spruce tree’s smell?

Don’t laugh, then, at his crying need:
One small brown bug upon a weed.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 11, 1951

Indoors or out, with or without,
In foul or gentle weather,
Pooh to the clime, so I have time
To rhyme two lines together.

Though smart folk save and sweat and slave
To stack a heap of money
I’ll live and die like the butterfly–
The bees can have their honey.

I shall never be sure
Till they lay me to rest:
In the nice ear of Nature,
Which bug is the best?

by Ray Romine Thursday, July 5, 1945

These things from Nature I love best:
A thrush’s creamed and spotted breast;
A Killdeer’s note against the sky;
The quick wing of a butterfly;
The wind across a field of grain;
The sunshine, coming after rain;
A flower blooming all unhailed;
The stars, when other lights have failed;
The zest of fall; the smell of spring;
Soft summer days when hearts shall sing;
The feel of rest in springy sod; —
I love these best, for these are–God.

by Ray Romine Monday, May 21, 1945

In pain, Time lingers on whose hands
No vital interest commands;
But who gives ear while Nature sings
Sees fair Time fly on silver wings.

Choose, then: long life of irritation,
Or a shorter one of pure elation…

by Ray Romine Thursday, November 15, 1951

Take two dips of purest sunshine,
Add an even spread of blue;
Sprinkle on a bit of birdsong,
Or a dab of mountain dew;

Then the fluffiest of white clouds—
Pile them higher, without stopping.
Any day, however perfect,
May yet improve with topping!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, January 27, 1953

The bugs and birds are fine for spring;
I love trees in the fall.
But nature-study when it’s hot
Perhaps is best of all.

My interest in the Great Outdoors
In winter rather flops:
It moves with my thermometer
And, when it’s colder, drops,

Until, no matter how I’ve fought,
At zero it amounts to naught.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, November 21, 1951

Flat down in the grass I lie,
Taking in the patterned sky,
Letting sunlight through the trees
Chase away my memories;
Hearing, as he blindly comes,
How the striped invader hums:
Poised above a flower, he
Pretends he is the Busy Bee,
But to me his lazy hover
Denotes another nature-lover!

by Ray Romine Monday, May 12, 1952

A touch of sunlight on a maple-tree
One autumn morning, made that day for me

A day remembered . “There’ll be other thrills
Today,” I promised, and, among the hills,

No doubt there were some colored sights that would
Have set me off enraptured , if I could

Have seen them, but my load that day was such
It kept my nose against the ground, in touch

With mundane matters one must recognize
Or starve.
The dollar made that day now lies

In someone else’s pocket. He may keep
It there. My share was one I still can reap:

To this day I can close my eyes and see
That touch of sunlight on the maple-tree.

by Ray Romine Friday, October 4, 1946

One-half disrobed,
Arms overhead,
She sleepily
Prepares for bed.

Soon, from a blanket
White and deep
She’ll softly smile
From deepest sleep,

To dream (like any
Girl sixteen)
Of her next frock
In cool spring-green!

by Ray Romine Saturday, October 21, 1950

God set His foot down hard upon him.
It made a sorry mess.
But what’s a lowly caterpillar–
More or less?

by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 19, 1948