Nancy Byrd Turner Poems

Everything is black and gold,
Black and gold, to-night:
Yellow pumpkins, yellow moon
Yellow candlelight;
...

He played by the river when he was young.
He raced with rabbits along the hills,
He fished for minnows, and climbed and swung,
...

Who loves his country will not rest
Content with vow and pledge alone,
But flies her banner in his breast
...

There was a boy of other days,
A quiet, awkward, earnest lad,
Who trudged long weary miles to get
A book on which his heart was set—
And then no candle had!
...

Here is this day,

Across the fields of darkness softly come

Into my silent room,
...

The Wooden Dog and the China Cat
Face to face in the doll-house sat,
And they picked a quarrel that grew and grew,
Because they had nothing else to do.
...

Men go out from the places where they dwelled,
They know not why not whither, overborne
At midnight by some awful word, foresworn
Between one dark and day, called and compelled.
...

Amos and Ann had a poem to learn,
A poem to learn one day;
But alas! they sighed, and alack! they cried,
...

Sometimes the weather is a man
With gray cloak flying free;
His coat of mail is icy hail,
A stormy steed rides he.
...

Only the human dead may lie
In God's good acre wide and fair;
Those of an humbler kind who die
...