Mary Howitt Poems

Poems » mary howitt

Mary Howitt
Mary Howitt (12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English poet, and author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She was born Mary Botham at Coleford, in Gloucestershire, the temporary residence of her parents, while her father, Samuel Botham, a prosperous quaker of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, was looking after some mining property. Samuel had married his wife Ann in South Wales in 1796 when he was 38 and she was 32. They had four children Anna, Mary, Emma and Charles. Their Queen Anne house is now known as Howitt Place. Mary Botham was educated at home, and read widely; she commenced writing verses at a very early age. Together with her husband they wrote over 180 books. The Spider and the Fly was a Caldecott Honor Book in October 2007

acceptance
 
 
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
... [read poem]
the telephone
 
 
"When I was just as far as I could walk
From here to-day,
There was an hour
All still... [read poem]
the fossil elephant
 
 
The earth is old! Six thousand years,
Are gone since I had birth;
In the forests of th... [read poem]
once by the pacific
 
 
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And though... [read poem]
a dream pang
 
 
I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew away;
And to t... [read poem]
a patch of old snow
 
 
There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper t... [read poem]
in a disused graveyard
 
 
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws... [read poem]
a considerable speck
 
 
(Microscopic)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper she... [read poem]
question [1]
 
 
When the old junk man Death
Comes to gather up our bodies
And toss them into the sack of o... [read poem]
my november guest
 
 
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as... [read poem]
the secret sits
 
 
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

-
the line-gang
 
 
Here come the line-gang pioneering by,
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They... [read poem]
acquainted with the night
 
 
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
... [read poem]
the weary blues
 
 
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard... [read poem]
fire and ice
 
 
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire... [read poem]
stopping by woods on a snowy evening
 
 
Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see ... [read poem]
the need of being versed in country things
 
 
The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was a... [read poem]
range finding
 
 
The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest
Befor... [read poem]
the road not taken
 
 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler... [read poem]
suicide's note
 
 
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
the gift outright
 
 
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Be... [read poem]
a hillside thaw
 
 
To think to know the country and not know
The hillside on the day the sun lets go
Ten mill... [read poem]
mending wall
 
 
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
... [read poem]
birches
 
 
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I l... [read poem]
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