I love to see the summer beaming forth / John Clare

Sonnet

I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lilies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play

~~
John Clare (1793-1864), 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Clare biography

Unwelcome / Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Unwelcome

We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise,
And the door stood open at our feast,
When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.

Oh, still grew the hearts that were beating so fast,
The loudest voice was still,
The jest died away on our lips as they passed,
And the rays of July struck chill.

The cups of red wine turned pale on the board,
The white bread black as soot,
The hound forgot the hand of her lord,
She fell down at his foot.

Low let me lie, where the dead dog lies,
Ere I sit me down again at a feast,
When there passes a woman with the West in her eyes,
And a man with his back to the East.

~~

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)

from Poems, 1907

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge biography 

Inniskeen Road: July Evening / Patrick Kavanagh

Inniskeen Road: July Evening

The bicycles go by in twos and threes –
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn tonight,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.

I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom. I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Ploughman, and other poems, 1936

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

A Summer's Night / Paul Laurence Dunbar

A Summer's Night

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth,
The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes,
Soft as a maiden's breath, the wind that flies
Up from the perfumed bosom of the South.

Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park;
And hither hastening like rakes that roam,
With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home,
The fire-flies come stagg'ring down the dark.

~~
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Laurence Dunbar biography

Breeze / Ilya Shambat

Breeze

So much the sweetness and softness of air
Breathe lightly upon me I cannot speak.
Your soul is a summer wind
Sprinkled with petals and feathers
Running through forests and meadows
Running through caverns and rapids
Running through mountains and deserts
Carrying sunlight
Carrying pollen
Carrying raindrops
And carrying love into hearts.
Breathe lightly my love
I can only feel you
Wafting across me
Rubbing against me
Flying around me
Enfolding, caressing my heart.
Bring me the world
Sweet breeze
Bring me world by the molecule
Bring me the top of the atmosphere
Bring me the bloom of the rainforest
Bring me the salt of the ocean
The wind and the rain making love under glancing moon.
Play, play with my flames
Sweet breeze
Send sparks flying
Let my fulminations become
A tapestry shining and tearing
And reaching for you
Carry me through the mind of humanity
Carry me to the soul of eternity
Carry me all around the globe
And together we'll drape it in love.

~~
Ilya Shambat (born 1975)
from Words and Pictures, 2003

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Ilya Shambat biography

Cuckoo Song

Cuckoo Song

Sumer is icumen in,
  Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
  And springth the wude nu —
          Sing cuccu!    

Awe bleteth after lomb,
  Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
  Murie sing cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
  Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
  Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

~~
Anonymous, circa 1250
from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

When the World is Burning / Ebenezer Jones

When the World is Burning

When the world is burning,
Fired within, yet turning
  Round with face unscathed;
Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
O'er all lands leap, crushing,    
  Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
Up amidst the meadows,
Gently through the shadows,
  Gentle flames will glide,
Small, and blue, and golden.
Though by bard beholden,
When in calm dreams folden,—
  Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,
Through the greensward peeping,
  Shall the soft lights start;
Laughing maids, unstaying,
Deeming it trick-playing,
High their robes upswaying,
  O'er the lights shall dart;
And the woodland haunter
Shall not cease to saunter
  When, far down some glade,
Of the great world's burning,
One soft flame upturning
Seems, to his discerning,
  Crocus in the shade.

~~
Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)
from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ebenezer Jones biography

Summer 1924 / Mary Devenport O'Neill

Summer 1924

Rain and hazy squirted light,
Dampness and the fat green trees,
Sleepily I read this book
Open on my knees –
’Who of the Nymphs divine
That haunt Olympus height,
Who, then, will tell me, who?’
Above the square five seagulls fly,
Like Cassiopeia, black on a white sky,
The afternoon wears on –
’Toil upon toil brings toil;
Whither, ah, whither,
Whither have I not gone?’

~~
Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967)
from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Mary Devenport O'Neill biography

Christ Walks in this Infernal District Too / Malcolm Lowry

Christ Walks in this Infernal District Too

Beneath the Malebolge lies Hastings Street,
The province of the pimp upon his beat,
Where each in his little world of drugs or crime
Moves helplessly or, hopeful, begs a dime
Wherewith to purchase half a pint of piss –
Although he will be cheated, even in this.
I hope, although I doubt it, God knows
This place where chancres blossom like the rose,
For on each face is such a hard despair
That nothing like a grief could enter there.
And on this scene from all excuse exempt,
The mountains gaze in absolute contempt,
Yet this is also Canada, my friend,
Yours to absolve of ruin, or make an end.

~~
Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957)
from Tamarack Review, 1961

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Malcolm Lowry biography

Penny's Top 20 / June 2018

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in June 2018:

  1.  Daysleepers, George J. Dance
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3.  Written at the close of Spring, Charlotte Turner Smith
  4.  Advice to a Butterfly, Maxwell Bodenheim
  5.  O moon, large golden summer moon, Mathilde Blind
  6.  The Parterre, E.H. Palmer
  7.  Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy
  8.  June Apples, Ethelwyn Wetherald
  9.  The Conjurer, George J. Dance
10.  A Spring Idyll, Patrick MacGill

11.  A Memory of June, Claude McKay
12.  To Spring, Robert Story
13.  To the Moon, Percy Bysshe Shelley
14.  Card Game, Frank Prewett
15.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
16.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance  
17.  Three Thousand Miles, Louis MacNeice
18.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
19.  It's September, Edgar Guest
20.  November, Robert Frost


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