Nancy Byrd Turner

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,
...

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
...

Death is only an old door
Set in a garden wall
On gentle hinges it gives, at dusk
When the thrushes call
...

Peace and Mercy and Jonathan,
And Patience (very small),
Stood by the table giving thanks
The first Thanksgiving of all.
...

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,
...

They went to the January house,
A house made all of snow,
With windows of ice, and chandeliers
Of icicles all in a row.
...

The house of December was all aglow,
Each room was jolly and red;
There were bulgy stockings ranged in a row,
...

The next house stood just back from the street,
In a gray little narrow lane.
A table loaded with things to eat
...

They went to the February place:
'Twas fashioned, with curious art,
Of colored sugar and paper lace,
With a front door shaped like a heart.
...

17.

The March house, strangely, was built in a tree,
With a fluttering roof of leaves,
And strong, straight boughs for the walls of the house,
And an apple or two in the eaves.
...

18.

The April house was near a pond;
It was made of reeds and of rushes,
All helter-skelter and out of kelter,
And ringed by gooseberry bushes.
...

Very familiar September seemed:
A flag-pole stood in the yard,
And the little path that led from the road
Was trampled bare and hard.
...

20.

A green-thatched cottage was May's sweet home
With velvet moss for a floor,
And a clambering vine in the gay sunshine,
And a Maypole set by the door.
...

Nancy Byrd Turner Biography

Nancy Byrd Turner (July 29, 1880 - September 5, 1971) was an American poet, editor and lecturer. Nancy Byrd Turner, born in Boydton, Virginia, was the eldest child of Rev. Byrd Thornton and Nancy Turner. In 1898 she graduated from Hannah More Academy in Maryland and began work as a teacher. During this period her work appeared in several national magazines including the Saturday Evening Post and Scribner's. In 1917, she moved to Boston to join the editorial staff of The Youth's Companion. By 1922 she was an editor for The Atlantic, The Independent, and Houghton Mifflin. She joined the MacDowell art colony in 1925 and remained there until 1944. Her first book of poetry, A Riband on My Rein, was published in 1929. Over the course of her career she published 15 books, ranging from adult poetry to children's literature and lyrics. Her work appeared in England and in the United States in such magazines as Good Housekeeping, Harper's Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, and the New Yorker. She retired to Ashland, Virginia to become a lecturer and freelance writer.)

The Best Poem Of Nancy Byrd Turner

Black And Gold

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

Jet-black cats with golden eyes
Shadows black as ink,
Firelight blinking in the dark
With a yellow blink

Black and gold, black and gold
Nothing in between-
When the world turns black and gold
Then it's Halloween!

Nancy Byrd Turner Comments

Woody 21 November 2017

These are not all of Nancy Byrd Turners poems. I'm looking for the lyrics to her 1925 poem, Children who walk in Jesus' Way. Should you coms across it, please add it here. Thanks.

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Kenneth 19 May 2020

Looking for the poem " Whenever I Say America" .

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Loretta 14 January 2019

Looking for the poem song at dusk. It is like a bedtime orayer

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Louise 28 August 2018

Also looking for Nancy Byrd Turner Poem Still there is Bethlehem

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Barbara 05 June 2018

I am looking for Nancy Byrd Turner's poem Still There is Bethlehem for a friend.

2 0 Reply
Kushagra 16 March 2018

Excellent poems

0 0 Reply

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