The following poems about nature, wildlife, and the outdoors are appropriate for a young audience.
“Trees at Night” by Helene Johnson
Slim Sentinels
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
“The Seedling” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
As a quiet little seedling
“River Roads” by Carl Sandburg
Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
“Dewdrops” by Myra Viola Wilds
Watch the dewdrops in the morning,
“Thou Dusky Spirit Of The Wood” by Henry David Thoreau
Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
“The Peddler of Flowers” by Amy Lowell
I came from the country
“Letter to the Northern Lights” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The light here on earth keeps us plenty busy: a fire
“Pursuit” by Elizabeth Bradfield
All summer, town kids pose at the edge…
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“Patience Taught by Nature” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
“Nature” by George Herbert
Full of rebellion, I would die,
“Untitled” by Paul Carroll
I want to write a poem the birds will understand…
“maggie and milly and molly and may” by E. E. Cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may…
“Sea Violet” by H. D.
The white violet…
“To make a prairie (1755)” by Emily Dickinson
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee...
“Inspiration Point” by Jennifer Jean
We’d stare at horses at Will Rogers Park, then hike
“By the Stream” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass…
“Song” by T. S. Eliot
When we came home across the hill…
“Putting in the Seed” by Robert Frost
You come to fetch me from my work to-night…
“Remember” by Joy Harjo
Remember the sky that you were born under…
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“Binsey Poplars” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled…
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“Deep in the Quiet Wood” by James Weldon Johnson
Are you bowed down in heart?
“On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” by John Keats
The Poetry of earth is never dead…
“Trees” by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see…
“Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell
I love to go out in late September…
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“The Metier of Blossoming” by Denise Levertov
Fully occupied with growing…
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“Swan’s Elegy” by Jaime Manrique
Lounging in a beach chair…
“I Have This Way of Being” by Jamaal May
I have this, and this isn’t a mouth…
“I Hear You Call, Pine Tree” by Yone Noguchi
I hear you call, pine tree, I hear you upon the hill…
“Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County” by Jay Parini
The maples sweat now, out of season…
“The Shapes of Leaves” by Arthur Sze
Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree...
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“Unpacking a Globe” by Arthur Sze
I gaze at the Pacific and don’t expect…
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“Battery” by Anne Waldman
A trio of instruments you love the notes…
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