The natural wild forest can be a place of solace and relaxation. The poems in this post capture the beauty and peace of spending time in nature. Whether you’re looking for a poem to read before your next hike or simply want to reflect on the natural world, these poems are sure to transport you away from your everyday life. So curl up with a cup of tea, sit by a window overlooking nature, and enjoy this relaxing poem collection about the wild forest.
1. Loveliest of trees by A. E. Housman
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
A.E. Housman wrote Loveliest of Trees in 1896. The poem discusses the concepts of both life and death, along with the passage of time, the fleeting nature of pleasure, and beauty. In this happy poem about nature, the speaker talks about how influential the sight of cherry blossom trees has been in his life. He finds a lot of enjoyment in observing them.
The speaker’s age, his love of nature, and the inevitable truth of human life are all mentioned throughout the poem. The speaker declares that because time is limited, he must make the most of his time spent admiring trees while he is still around. The tree represents the greater natural world and all lovely, satisfying things. The lesson of the story is to not squander one’s life on things that one does not find satisfying.
2. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
At first glance, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening seems like a simple poem. On a snowy night, the speaker is passing by some forests. He or she observes the gorgeous picture in almost complete solitude. Though tempted to stay longer, he or she recognizes the pull of commitments and the large distance still to be covered before being able to get some rest.
The poem becomes more intriguing as readers investigate the motivations and hidden desires, and deft wordplay creates multiple meanings. The brief diversion from his duties in the outside world spells the narrator, giving him time to himself. For the narrator, the forests are incredibly dense, dark, and majestic in every way.
The speaker has two options before them, and the woods represent one of those options. They had two options: either go into the woods or go back to their regular responsibilities. The woods stand in for a kind of liberation from society’s restrictions and the never-ending tasks that the average individual is required to complete every day.
There, one might reside amidst nature and take pleasure in its tranquility. But the forests are also “dark and deep,” it should be stressed. Additionally, they stand for the darkness and provide the speaker the chance to “sleep,” or as some people have interpreted it, to die.
3. The Forest Morn by Douglas Malloch
The forest morn! Across the night profound
Steals now the music of harmonious sound—
A forest is a place of beauty, and in poems such as The Forest Morn by Douglas Malloch, the poet captures that beauty in all its glory. This poem is about the dawning of day in a forest, and how it can be so magnificently beautiful. The images of trees standing tall and green, branches reaching high into the sky, and leaves rustling gently in the wind are simply breathtaking. In addition to portraying natural beauty, this poem also speaks to nature’s deep wisdom. It is clear from these lines that the author understands what it means to be alive – to experience wonderment and awe every day.
4. Trees by Joyce Kilmer
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
The speaker in Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees passionately asserts that no work of art can compare to one of God’s creations, especially one that is a tree. Right from the opening lines, the speaker declares that he has never seen a poem more lovely than a tree. He doesn’t think that humans can create anything that is superior to what God has created.
The next few lines addressed the kind of tree he envisions. It will be closely connected to the earth and all of its elements. In the summer, nesting birds will be found in the branches, and in the winter, the tree’s “bosom” will be covered in soft snow. No poetry or work of art will ever be more beautiful than what already exists in nature, the speaker of the poem states in the poem’s conclusion.
5. Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing.
Sylvia Plath analyzes the duties of motherhood and responsibility that women at the time were expected to play in the poem Winter Trees, which investigates how women are treated in society. Trees serve as a metaphor for both the abuse of women and the speaker’s desire to rebel against convention and everyday life throughout the entire poem.
Plath expresses her sense of failure as a lady society expects her to be throughout the poem while also making a statement on the mistreatment and unrealistic expectations of women at the time. Both the beginning and the end of the poem have a sense of gloom, signifying that pain cannot be removed. No consolation is offered to Plath or the reader when her inquiries are left unanswered at the poem’s conclusion.
6. The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The Trees, one of Larkin’s most well-known works, is a poem about mortality and a celebration of nature at the same time. The poem’s speaker notices that the trees are sprouting new leaves in the opening stanza, just as if the trees were communicating something. When the speaker says that the trees’ “greenness” is itself “a type of melancholy,” as if the trees are in mourning for something, this upbeat, even joyful beginning is then undermined.
Despite the fact that each year when their new leaves bloom, trees give the impression of being “born again,” they actually age and pass away much like humans. The tree trunk’s rings serve as a way to record their ages. The trees, which are grandly referred to as “unresting castles,” continue to exist and their leaves grow back fully every year despite the fact that they are just as mortal as we are. It’s as if the trees are encouraging us to start over every year and let the past go.
Although this poem is rooted in ideas of nature and the existence of “trees,” Larkin does not hold back in taking the reader on a journey through all of the reactions to the observations made. But the reader can discover something more than just nature at the center of that investigation. The Trees is a meditation on life at a deeper level. In particular, a closer look at nature’s specifics reveals a variety of unanswered questions that reflect life’s uncertainties and our incapacity to influence even the most obvious natural events.
7. Woods in Winter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.
In his poem Woods in Winter, Longfellow masterfully depicts the feeling of taking a brisk walk in a winter forest. In addition, while he embodies the fervor and magnificence of summer, he also grows to appreciate the melody of the frigid winds and the drab surroundings.
Longfellow is an American poet from New England. He is also known as one of the “Fireside Poets.” The group’s name comes from the fact that they were highly well-known authors during their time and that many people preferred to read them by fire. One of his earlier compositions, written before the age of nineteen, is the poem Woods in Winter.
8. Forest Hymn by William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The narrator in Bryant’s Forest Hymn is out on a walk in the woods. “The groves were God’s first temples”, he declares, describing the purity of the natural world. The cathedrals were the spreading branches and lofty heights of the trees before man learned to create huge architectural marvels. With the power of the trees and the roar of the wind to provide perspective, he claims that it would have been simple to worship in such a location.
In comparison to nature, humanity is helpless and feeble. The narrator wonders why should we ignore God’s old temples and worship solely in crowds and under structures that our feeble hands have built. The narrator then falls to his knees and sings a hymn to God in the woods.
The narrator muses in his devout “hymn” that nature is constantly being worshiped, whether or not man chooses to accept it. God can therefore always be found in the forests. The forest bears witness to life, death, and resurrection as proof of the existence of God.
The narrator laments how little man cares or pays attention to God. This carelessness is particularly pronounced in urban areas, where man is shielded from the elements that earlier afflicted him. God occasionally uses fire, storms, and floods to draw people’s attention to himself. The narrator prays to God to protect him and his family from these horrible situations and makes a commitment to always keep the “milder majesty” of the woods’ “calm shades” in his heart.
9. Birches by Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
In Birches by Robert Frost, The speaker loves to imagine that birch trees that are crooked are the result of boys “swinging” them. He is aware that ice storms are the reason they are twisted. However, he favors his own interpretation of a boy carefully ascending a tree before dangling from the tree’s crown to the earth. He once carried out this action himself, and he longs to return to those times. He compares birch swinging as going “away from earth awhile” before returning.
Most people can probably comprehend this wish. The appeal of climbing trees is also shared by all people. Who wouldn’t want to rise above the conflict and escape the hardships or tedium of the daily grind, especially when “life is too much like a pathless wood”?
Climbing a tree is one method of navigating this “pathless wood.” However, the motivation behind this act of climbing may not be so practical. It is a game for the child and a spiritual release for the grownup. In either case, scaling birches seems to be associated with creativity, the act of creativity, a push into the ethereal, and even the thought of death.
However, the speaker does not stop there. If climbing trees is a kind of push in the direction of transcendence, then total transcendence would entail never coming back down. However, this speaker does not place a lot of value on the idea of an afterlife. He strengthens his ties to the land and resists the self-delusional fantasy.
For the upward motion to remain in balance enough to be tolerable, it needs a counterpart, a swing in the opposite direction. To maintain his sanity, he must flee, yet to continue, he must come back. Because “Earth’s the right place for love.”
Final thoughts
Although the natural world is changing, and sometimes it feels like we are losing these pieces of history, it’s important to remember that nature will always be there for us. These poems about the forest are a reminder of our connection to the natural world, and they offer hope for the future. We can all help protect these forests by doing our part to reduce our impact on the environment. Which poem spoke to you most and why?
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Thomas Dao is the guy who created Poem Home, a website where people can read about all things poetry related. When he’s not busy working on his next project, you can find him reading a good book or spending time with family and friends.
