Best Shepherdess Poems
A shepherdess with a lamb to her breast
Against a dry stone wall on a windy hill
She cradles it with love so truly blessed
Over steep Welsh hills they roam best
Hardy hill sheep bred to wander at will
A shepherdess with a lamb to her breast
Long fleeces waving in springs unrest
Bleating lambs at teats taking their fill
She cradles it with love so truly blessed
A brooding landscape the ultimate test
The valley below a patchwork sits still
A shepherdess with a lamb to her breast
Her love is her flock she tenders with zest
Caring for her lambs with love and skill
She cradles it with love so truly blessed
A shepherdess her lambs so caressed
Her life with her sheep is always a thrill
A shepherdess with a lamb to her breast
She cradles it with love so truly blessed
Never trust a shepherdess
Although she may look pretty
Beneath her lacy frilly dress
A heart beats without pity.
There’s furtive tales of Miss Bo Peep
Told behind closed doors
And just what happened to her sheep
Upon those silent moors
They never did return, you see
Though many tried to find them
They disappeared in mystery
Complete with tails behind them.
Dark doings lurk in hill and dale
Untold in nursery rhymes
‘Tis best that we should draw a veil
Across these rural crimes.
Don’t think of cruelty in the grass
Don’t think of woolly plight
Don’t think those thoughts that will not pass
Or let you sleep at night
So do not think of Miss Bo Peep
Or of that crook she wields
Or of those dark deeds buried deep
In England’s pleasant fields.
Unknowing we can only guess
The horrors that went down
Beware the Wicked Shepherdess
Who stalks Old London Town.
As xanthic grows the tender wheat
she splays her flock on country lane
while basil floats the sultry heat
and shyly whispers timid grain.
She splays her flock on country lane
by jade of idle burnished grass,
and shyly whispers timid grain
in azure as the breezes pass.
By jade of idle burnished grass
crowd daffodils of salmon glow.
In azure as the breezes pass
coy clouds now mirror sheeply flow.
Crowd daffodils of salmon glow
while basil floats the sultry heat.
Coy clouds now mirror sheeply flow
as xanthic grows the tender wheat.
O’ Fair shepherdess! What a misery swept!
A lover, a selfless lover you have lost
Why don’t you speak? You haven’t yet wept.
Thus the shepherdess replied, “It’s not my fault”
His death hasn’t moved you, shame!
You are unmoved by the loss of your lover
You treat him as if he were a stranger
Thus she replied, “I am not to blame “
“Yes, not his love but I grieve him aloof
He had shared so many other lasses
They would be sharing the same feelings
Unfortunately,” I have no proof”
“Ask any shepherdess around any lane
He loved far and wide, suffice it to say.
Of his unfaithfulness, I drove him away
Therefore," I will show no shame”.
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Honorable Mention
Contest: Four sentences
The Wind Shepherdess
The wind,
Like a shepherdess,
Gathers misty spindrift;
Heaven’s lambs
From azure fields
Where they pasture
Viewing paradise
In meadows without edges;
Gliding effortless
In pastoral symphonies.
Linseed oil wash
Light strokes show her virgin blush
Forever a flirt
By Robb A. Kopp
The Wind Shepherd and Shepherdess
The winds,
Like a shepherd and shepherdess,
Herd blackness,
In swirling ghosts -
Mysteries rising
From wastelands of wildness
Casting veils of gloom,
Haunted by thunder,
Trying to stampede -
Corralling tumbleweeds.
Blue faded.
The same horizon, the same clouds
changed by brushes from an impressionist painter.
The lavender sky blushes
and the crest of the cheery trees beams
as the wind hums, enticing belated bumblebees.
Twigs rattle waking a little shepherdess bellow.
Amber eyes browse the dusky glen.
She whistles, summoning her hound
and ties her undulating hair with a butterfly.
She engenders a ballroom below the tree’s canopy.
and abandons her boot, her cap, her apparel.
A blushful wind sews a new dress with dead leaves.
She tiptoes on the top of the grass blades
and two small primroses flourish on her face
as the tender breeze takes a rhyme from her lips.
The tangling grass tickles her feet
and a perishing sunray slips between the leaves
to reach her cheeks.
She hoovers free and twirls making herself a target
for distracted bowmen…
.. her dog barks and she eyes down
to a basket with four remaining heart-shaped berries.
Night arrives and starlight precipitates.
The little shepherdess greets the drops of rain with a spin.
Listen, listen to the lingering melody.