Scottish Poetry Selection
- To Nature

There are many poems by Walter Wingate in which his love of nature and its constancy comes shining through, but none more so than this one.


To Nature

Mother of all! How healing is my rest -
   When human grief assails me,
      When human solace fails me -
In sweet forgetfulness upon thy breast!

No gilded lie is thine, no promise vain,
    No tale of bliss to-morrow,
       To cheat me of my sorrow,
Or lull the poignancy of present pain.

Too wise art thou, where comfort cannot flower,
    To vex me with condoling,
       To mock me with consoling,
Or with caresses tease the bitter hour.

But with thy glad green woods and careless gales,
    With all the myriad voices
       Wherewith young June rejoices,
Her light-lost larks, her cuckoo-haunted vales,

Come steal me from myself, nor let me go,
    In God's fair world lamenting,
       My folly unrepenting,
Blind to all good for one poor mote of woe.

Return to the Index of Walter Wingate Poems or the General Index of Scottish Poetry




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