A poet’s journey 4: Poetic inspiration from nature

MICHAEL DOM

NATURE IS A GREAT SOURCE of inspiration for writing poems. By combining nature with ideas from their own experience poets have created great and enduring poetry.

An example from William Blake: To see the world in a grain of sand / And heaven in a wild flower / To hold infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour.

An example from Lord Byron: There is a pleasure in the pathless wood / There is a rapture on the lonely shore / There is society where none intrudes / By the beach and the music in its roar.

A poem may be inspired by a tiny grain of sand or a whole expanse of the natural world. The power of a poem is that it not only reminds us of the tangible, what we may see, hear, taste, touch or feel, but it also reveals to us the intangible perceptions realized in that tableau of nature with our shared human experience.

It is said that a picture says a thousand words. But in a poem it is not necessary to describe every single bit of detail, it is only necessary to reveal to us a fresh perspective that renews our relationship with the world around us, with other people and with ourselves.

At dawn on a beach somewhere

I see them now, in the light that glitters in foam,
as waves break on a beach in the grey of morn;

Between two worlds, in that moment,
I taste their salty tang, in my mouth;

When the first gasp of dawn shudders through me
and sunlight shears the horizon in a brilliant streak;

Then a grain of sand clinging between my lips,
is a coarse bread on which to break my fasting;

When youth is no more than a memory,
where twilight borders our mortal reality;

And we each, blindly seeking our destiny,
send our prayers to a place beyond the sea;

There, at dawn on a beach somewhere,
all our secret dreams are washed ashore.

Comments

[Maureen Patia]

A very inspirational poem. It descibes life is just a few stanzas.It reminds me of one thing life after death. Creatively written.

[Michael Dom]

Phil - Thanks, that's an excellent sonnet and one of those in plain English which encouraged me to try using the style.

210 years ago...

[Phil Fitzpatrick]

In the early 1800s, William Wordsworth wrote several sonnets criticising what he perceived as "the decadent material cynicism of the time." The sonnets reflect his philosophy that humanity must get in touch with nature in order to progress spiritually. The one below is an Italian sonnet with the 14 lines in iambic pentameter.

The sonnet uses the last six lines (sestet) to answer the first eight lines (octave). The first eight lines (octave) are the problem and the next six (sestet) is the solution.

He wrote this one in 1802 as a criticism of the industrial revolution and its impact on nature. Very prescient and as apt today as it was 210 years ago.

The world is too much with us

By William Wordsworth (1802)

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.