Tripping down the field-path / Charles Swain

Tripping down the field-path

Tripping down the field-path,
  Early in the morn,
There I met my own love
  ’Midst the golden corn;
Autumn winds were blowing,
  As in frolic chase,
All her silken ringlets
  Backward from her face;
Little time for speaking
  Had she, for the wind,
Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon,
  Ever swept behind.

Still some sweet improvement
  In her beauty shone;
Every graceful movement      
  Won me,— one by one!
As the breath of Venus
  Seemed the breeze of morn,
Blowing thus between us,
  ’Midst the golden corn.
Little time for wooing
  Had we, for the wind
Still kept on undoing
  What we sought to bind.

Oh! that autumn morning
  In my heart it beams,
Love’s last look adorning
  With its dream of dreams:
Still, like waters flowing
  In the ocean shell,
Sounds of breezes blowing
  In my spirit dwell;
Still I see the field-path;—
  Would that I could see
Her whose graceful beauty
  Lost is now to me!

~~
Charles Swain (1801-1874)
from Songs and Ballads, 1867

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Charles Swain biography

Autumn / Frances Browne

Autumn

Oh, welcome to the corn-clad slope,
     And to the laden tree,
Thou promised autumn - for the hope
     Of nations turn'd to thee,
Through all the hours of splendour past,
     With summer's bright career -
And we see thee on thy throne at last,
     Crown'd monarch of the year!

Thou comest with gorgeous flowers
     That make the roses dim,
With morning mists and sunny hours
     And wild birds' harvest hymn;
Thou comest with the might of floods,
     The glow of moonlit skies,
And the glory flung on fading woods
     Of thousand mingled dyes!

But never seem'd thy steps so bright
     On Europe's ancient shore,
Since faded from the poet's sight
     That golden age of yore;
For early harvest-home hath pour'd
     Its gladness on the earth,
And the joy that lights the princely board
     Hath reach'd the peasant's hearth.

O Thou, whose silent bounty flows
     To bless the sower's art,
With gifts that ever claim from us
     The harvests of the heart -
If thus Thy goodness crown the year,
     What shall the glory be,
When all Thy harvest, whitening here,
     Is gather'd home to Thee!

~~
Frances Browne (1816-1879)
from Lyrics, and miscellaneous poems, 1848

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Frances Browne biography

September / Ethelwyn Wetherald

September

But yesterday all faint for breath,
     The Summer laid her down to die;
And now her frail ghost wandereth
     In every breeze that loiters by.
Her wilted prisoners look up,
    As wondering who hath broke their chain.
Too deep they drank of summer’s cup,
     They have no strength to rise again.

How swift the trees, their mistress gone,
     Enrobe themselves for revelry!
Ungovernable winds upon
     The wold are dancing merrily.
With crimson fruits and bursting nuts,
     And whirling leaves and flushing streams,
The spirit of September cuts
     Adrift from August’s languid dreams.

A little while the revelers
     Shall flame and flaunt and have their day,
And then will come the messengers
     Who travel on a cloudy way.
And after them a form of light,
     A sense of iron in the air,
Upon the pulse a touch of might
     And winter’s legions everywhere.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The House of the Trees, and other poems, 1895

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

After Summer / Philip Bourke Marston

After Summer

We ’ll not weep for summer over —
        No, not we:
Strew above his head the clover,—
        Let him be!

Other eyes may weep his dying,      
        Shed their tears
There upon him, where he’s lying
        With his peers.

Unto some of them he proffer’d
        Gifts most sweet;      
For our hearts a grave he offer’d,—
        Was this meet?

All our fond hopes, praying, perish’d
        In his wrath,—
All the lovely dreams we cherish’d      
        Strew’d his path.

Shall we in our tombs, I wonder,
        Far apart,
Sunder’d wide as seas can sunder
        Heart from heart,      

Dream at all of all the sorrows
        That were ours,—
Bitter nights, more bitter morrows;
        Poison-flowers

Summer gather’d, as in madness,      
        Saying, "See,
These are yours, in place of gladness,—
        Gifts from me"?

Nay, the rest that will be ours
        Is supreme,      
And below the poppy flowers
        Steals no dream.

~~
Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)
from A Last Harvest, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Philip Bourke Marston biography

Summer Night / Langston Hughes

Summer Night

The sounds
Of the Harlem night
Drop one by one into stillness.
The last player-piano is closed.
The last victrola ceases with the
" Jazz Boy Blues. "
The last crying baby sleeps
And the night becomes
Still as a whispering heartbeat.
I toss
Without rest in the darkness,
Weary as the tired night,
My soul
Empty as the silence,
Empty with a vague,
Aching emptiness,
Desiring,
Needing someone,
Something.

I toss without rest
In the darkness
Until the new dawn,
Wan and pale,
Descends like a white mist
Into the court-yard.

~~
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
from The Crisis, December 1925

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

Langston Hughes biography

Season's End / Raymond Holden

Season's End

This is the end of the Summer.
This is the end of all.
The sap is running back into earth
And the red leaves shudder and fall.

If I could shake myself down
From the stem that has ceased to flow,
Would there be a cool dark earth to close
Round the things I have come to know?

~~
Raymond Holden (1894-1972)
from Granite and Alabaster, 1922

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

Raymond Holden biography

The New Year / Emma Lazarus

The New Year

                      Rosh-Hashanah, 5643

Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
      And naked branches point to frozen skies.—
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,
      The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn
A sea of beauty and abundance lies,
                      Then the new year is born.

Look where the mother of the months uplifts
      In the green clearness of the unsunned West,
Her ivory horn of plenty, dropping gifts,
      Cool, harvest-feeding dews, fine-winnowed light;
Tired labor with fruition, joy and rest
                      Profusely to requite.

Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call
      Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb
With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all.
      The red, dark year is dead, the year just born
Leads on from anguish wrought by priest and mob,
                      To what undreamed-of morn?

For never yet, since on the holy height,
      The Temple’s marble walls of white and green
Carved like the sea-waves, fell, and the world’s light
      Went out in darkness,—never was the year
Greater with portent and with promise seen,
                      Than this eve now and here.

Even as the Prophet promised, so your tent
      Hath been enlarged unto earth’s farthest rim.
To snow-capped Sierras from vast steppes ye went,
      Through fire and blood and tempest-tossing wave,
For freedom to proclaim and worship Him,
                      Mighty to slay and save.

High above flood and fire ye held the scroll,
      Out of the depths ye published still the Word.
No bodily pang had power to swerve your soul:
      Ye, in a cynic age of crumbling faiths,
Lived to bear witness to the living Lord,
                      Or died a thousand deaths.

In two divided streams the exiles part,
      One rolling homeward to its ancient source,
One rushing sunward with fresh will, new heart.
      By each the truth is spread, the law unfurled,
Each separate soul contains the nation’s force,
                      And both embrace the world.

Kindle the silver candle’s seven rays,
      Offer the first fruits of the clustered bowers,
The garnered spoil of bees. With prayer and praise
      Rejoice that once more tried, once more we prove
How strength of supreme suffering still is ours
                      For Truth and Law and Love.

~~
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
from Poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emma Lazarus biography

As impercepibly as Grief / Emily Dickinson

[1540]

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible, at last
To seem like Perfidy —

A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —

The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace
As Guest that would be gone —

And thus without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Also read: 2 poems on summer's end

Emily Dickinson biograpaphy

A Summer Night / Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

A Summer Night

I feel the breath of the summer night,
      Aromatic fire;
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
      With tender desire.

The white moths flutter about the lamp,
      Enamored with light;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
      A song to the night.

But I am alone, and how can I sing
      Praises to thee?      
Come, Night! unveil the beautiful soul
      That waiteth for me.

~~

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (1823-1902)

from Poems, 1859

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard biography

Wonderful World / William Brighty Rands

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World!
With the wonderful water round you curl’d,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast —
World, you are beautifully drest.

The wonderful air is over me,     
And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree;
It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.

You friendly Earth! how far do you go,
With the wheatfields that nod, and the rivers that flow,     
With cities and gardens and cliffs and isles,
And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah, you are so great, and I am so small,
I tremble to think of you, World, at all!
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,     
A whisper inside me seem’d to say —

‘You are more than the Earth, tho’ you are such a dot:
You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!’

~~

William Brighty Rands (1823-1882)

from Good Words for the Young, December 1868

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Brighty Rands biography

Penny's Top 20 / August 2018

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

  1.  To the Sea Angel, Will Dockery
  2.  The Ocean, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  3.  The Diver, W.W.E. Ross
  4.  August, E. Nesbit
  5.  The Pool, Marjorie Pickthall
  6.  Daysleepers, George J. Dance
  7.  Sea Gulls, Jeanette Marks
  8.  Heat, H.D.
  9.  August, Algernon Charles Swinburne
10.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

11.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance  
12.  I love to see the summer beaming forth, John Clare
13.  May, Christina Rossetti
14.  A Christmas Greeting, Walt Whitman
15.  The Poet's Hat, Robert Fuller Murray
16.  When Summer Comes, Sophia Almon Hensley
17.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud
18.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
19.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
20.  Impression: Le Reveillon, Oscar Wilde


Source: Blogger, "Stats"