October / Louise Driscoll

October

When my hills stand ablaze with gold and red,
    And I can hear the harsh-voiced leader cry
    As wild geese, like a necklace on the sky,
Are seen for a brief moment overhead,
Then I remember what my lover said.
    No bird of Spring, however joyously
    Singing arpeggios on a lilac tree,
Can speak to me so plainly of the dead.
    October, bringing gaudy mysteries,
With smell of burning leaves and dripping sound
As frost freed nuts come dropping to the ground,
    With late, red apples glowing on the trees
    Like lanterns at some feast of memories,
The spell of death and silence has unbound.

~~
Louise Driscoll (1875-1957)
from The Garden of the West, 1922

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Louise Driscoll biography

John S. Turner, A skein of geese flying above Tesco, Broughton Park (detail).

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. 

On a Thrush Singing in Autumn / Lewis Morris

On a Thrush Singing in Autumn

Sweet singer of the Spring, when the new world
Was fill’d with song and bloom, and the fresh year
Tripp’d, like a lamb playful and void of fear,
Through daisied grass and young leaves scarce unfurl’d,
Where is thy liquid voice
That all day would rejoice?
Where now thy sweet and homely call,
Which from grey dawn to evening’s chilling fall
Would echo from thin copse and tassell’d brake,
For homely duty tuned and love’s sweet sake?

The spring-tide pass’d, high summer soon should come.
The woods grew thick, the meads a deeper hue;
The puipy summer growths swell’d, lush and tall;
The sharp scythes swept at daybreak through the dew.
Thou didst not heed at all,
Thy prodigal voice grew dumb;
No more with song mightst thou beguile,
— She sitting on her speckled eggs the while —
Thy mate’s long vigil as the slow days went,
Solacing her with lays of measureless content.

Nay, nay, thy voice was Duty’s, nor would dare
Sing were Love fled, though still the world were fair;
The summer wax’d and waned, the nights grew cold,
The sheep were thick within the wattled fold,
The woods began to moan,
Dumb wert thou and alone;
Yet now, when leaves are sere, thy ancient note
Comes low and halting from thy doubtful throat.
Oh, lonely loveless voice! what dost thou here
In the deep silence of the fading year?

Wood Thrush. From 

Chester A. Reed,

The Bird Book, 1915.

Wikimedia Commons.

Thus do I read the answer of thy song:
‘I sang when winds blew chilly all day long;
I sang because hope came and joy was near,
I sang a little while, I made good cheer;
In summer’s cloudless day
My music died away;
But now the hope and glory of the year
Are dead and gone, a little while I sing
Songs of regret for days no longer here,
And touched with presage of the far-off Spring.’

Is this the meaning of thy note, fair bird?
Or do we read into thy simple brain
Echoes of thoughts which human hearts have stirred,
High-soaring joy and melancholy pain?
Nay, nay, that lingering note
Belated from thy throat —
‘Regret,’ is what it sings, ‘regret, regret!
The dear days pass, but are not wholly gone.
In praise of those I let my song go on;
’Tis sweeter to remember than forget.’

~~
Lewis Morris (1833-1907)
from Songs of Britain, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lewis Morris biography

October / Edwin Arnold

October

A bold brunette she is, radiant with mirth,
    Who comes a-tripping over corn-fields cropped;
    Fruits and blown roses, from her full arms dropped,
Carpet her feet along the gladdened earth;

Around her brow glitters a careless crown
    Of bronzed oak, and apple-leaves, and vine;
    And russet-nuts and country berries twine
About her gleaming shoulders and loose gown.

Like grapes at vintage, where the ripe wine glows,
    Glows so her sweet cheek, summer-touched but fair;
    And, like grape-tendrils, all her wealth of hair,
Gold on a ground of brown, nods as she goes:

Grapes too, a-spirt, her brimming fingers bear,
    A dainty winepress, pouring wet and warm
    The crimson river over wrist and arm,
And on her lips — adding no crimson there!

Ah! golden autumn hours — fly not so fast!
    Let the sweet Lady long with us delay;
    The sunset makes the sun so wished-for, — stay!
Of three fair sisters — loveliest and the last!

But after laughter ever follows grief,
    And Pleasure's sunshine brings its shadow Pain;
    Even now begins the dreary time again.
The first dull patter of the first dead leaf.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edwin Arnold biography

ТиЈок, Zhiva - Old Slavic Goddess of Autumn, 2024. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October:

Autumn's Orchestra, by Pauline Johnson

[...]
There is a lonely minor chord that sings
Faintly and far along the forest ways,
When the firs finger faintly on the strings
Of that rare violin the night wind plays
[...]

(Ingrid Stölzel: To One Beyond Seas [2018]. Live ensemble performance.)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2010/09/autumns-orchestra-e-pauline-johnson.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2024

                                         

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2024:

  1.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  2.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  3.  September, VizantOr*

  4.  Mowing, Robert Frost

  5.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  6.  Fair Summer Droops, Thomas Nashe
  7.  September, Edwin Arnold

  8.  August, George J. Dance
  9.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

10.  Tell me not here, it needs not saying, A.E. Housman

11.  The Bed of Old John Zeller, Wallace Stevens
12.  Vacation End, Leslie Pinckney Hill

13.  Autumn, Francis Ledwidge

14.  Autumnal Day, Rainer Maria Rilke

15.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

16.  Logos, George J. Dance

17.  August, Edmund Spenser

18.  Canadian Autumn Tints, J.D. Edgar
19.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

20. A Dirge, Christina Rossetti

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

Autumn / Francis Ledwidge

Autumn

Now leafy winds are blowing cold,
And South by West the sun goes down,
A quiet huddles up the fold
In sheltered corners of the brown.

Like scattered fire the wild fruit strews
The ground beneath the blowing tree,
And there the busy squirrel hews
His deep and secret granary.

And when the night comes starry clear,
The lonely quail complains beside
The glistening waters on the mere
Where widowed Beauties yet abide.

And I, too, make my own complaint
Upon a reed I plucked in June,
And love to hear it echoed faint
Upon another heart in tune.

~~
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
from Last Songs, 1918

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Ledwidge biography

"Autumn" read by Audiobook Passion. Courtesy Audiobook Passion.

Canadian Autumn Tints / J.D Edgar

Canadian Autumn Tints

We wandered off together,
    We walked in dreamful ease,
In mellow autumn weather,
    Past autumn-tinted trees;
The breath of soft September
    Left fragrance in the air,
And well do I remember,
    I thought you true as fair.

The maples' deep carnations,
    The beeches' silv'ry sheen,
Hid nature's sad mutations,
    And I forgot the green:
Forgot the green of summer,
    The buds of early spring,
And gave the latest comer
    My false heart's offering.

O painted autumn roses!
    O dying autumn leaves!
Your beauty fades and closes,
    That gaudy hue deceives:
Like clouds that gather golden
    Around the setting sun,
Your glories are beholden
    Just ere the day is done.

Or, like th' electric flushes
    That fire Canadian skies,
Your bright and changeful blushes
    In gold and crimson rise.
But health has long departed
    From all that hectic glare;
And love sees, broken-hearted,
    The fate that's pictured there.

The brush that paints so brightly
    No mortal artist wields;
He touches all things lightly,
    But sweeps the broadest fields.
The fairest flowers are chosen
    To wither at his breath;
The hand is cold and frozen
    That paints those hues of death.

We wandered back together,
    With hearts but ill at ease,
In mellow autumn weather,
    Past autumn-tinted trees;
The breath of soft September
    Left fragrance in the air,
And well we both remember
    The love that ended there.

~~
J.D. Edgar (1841-1899)
from This Canada of Ours, and other poems, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J.D.Edgar biography

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Autumn Woods, 1886. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.