The Mother (II) / William Wilfred Campbell

The Mother

II

From throes of pain they buried me low,
For death had finished a mother’s woe.

But under the sod, in the grave’s dread doom,
I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom.  

I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest
Was broken in wailings on my dead breast.

I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling:
Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring!

When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red
She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed.

I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night,
And then I rose in my graveclothes white.

I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed
To the world of sorrowing overhead.    

Men would have called me a thing of harm,
But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm.

I felt my breasts swell under my shroud;
No stars shone white, no winds were loud;

But I stole me past the graveyard wall,    
For the voice of my baby seemed to call;

And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb:
‘Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come.’

I passed the streets to my husband’s home;
The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb;      

I heard the sound of each sleeper’s breath,
Light waves that break on the shores of death.

I listened a space at my chamber door,
Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor.

My babe was asleep on a stranger arm,      
‘O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm,

‘Though dark and so deep, for mother is there!
O come with me from the pain and care!

‘O come with me from the anguish of earth,
Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth,

‘Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long,
And mother will croon you a slumber-song—

‘A slumber-song that will charm your eyes
To a sleep that never in earth-song lies!

‘The loves of earth your being can spare,    
But never the grave, for mother is there.’

I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast,
And stole me back to my long, long rest.

And here I lie with him under the stars,
Dead to earth, its peace and its wars;      

Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms,
So long as he cradles up soft in my arms.

And heaven may open its shimmering doors,
And saints make music on pearly floors,

And hell may yawn to its infinite sea,      
But they never can take my baby from me.

For so much a part of my soul he hath grown
That God doth know of it high on His throne.

And here I lie with him under the flowers
That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours,      

With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea,
Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me.

~~

William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918), 1891

from The Dread Voyage Poems, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wilfred Campbell biography

October Snow / Lew Sarett

October Snow

Swiftly the blizzard stretched a frozen arm
From out the hollow night –
Stripping the world of all her scarlet pomp,
And muffling her in white.

Dead white the hills; dead white the soundless plain;
Dead white the blizzard's breath –
Heavy with hoar that touched each woodland thing
With a white and silent death.

In inky stupor, along the drifted snow,
The sluggish river rolled –
A numb black snake caught lingering in the sun
By autumn's sudden cold.

~~
Lew Sarett (1888-1954)
from The Box of God, 1922

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

Lew Sarett biography

October / Robert Bridges

October

April adance in play
    met with his lover May
    where she came garlanded.
The blossoming boughs o’erhead
    were thrill’d to bursting by
    the dazzle from the sky
    and the wild music there
    that shook the odorous air.

Each moment some new birth
    hasten’d to deck the earth
    in the gay sunbeams.
Between their kisses dreams:
    And dream and kiss were rife
    with laughter of mortal life.

But this late day of golden fall
    is still as a picture upon a wall
    or a poem in a book lying open unread.
    Or whatever else is shrined
when the Virgin hath vanishèd:
    Footsteps of eternal Mind
    on the path of the dead.

~~
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
from October, and other poems, 1920

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

Robert Bridges biography

One Day in Autumn / David Morton

One Day in Autumn

With all our going through this golden weather,
    Where leaves have littered every forest way,
If there be lovers, they should be together:
    For this is golden . . . but the end is grey.
Beyond this shimmer where the bright leaves fall,
    Behind this haze of silver shot with gold,
There is a greyness waiting for it all,—
    A little longer . . . and the world is old.

And never loneliness grew more and more,
    As this that haunts these late October days,
With smoky twilights gathering at the door,
    With grey mist clouding on familiar ways . . .
And well for him who has another near,
When fires are lighted for the dying year.

~~
David Morton (1886-1957)
from Ships in Harbour, and other poems, 1921

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

David Morton biography

The Road Not Taken / Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from Mountain Interval, 1916

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

Robert Frost biography

Immoral / James Oppenheim

Immoral

I keep walking around myself, mouth open with amazement:
For by all the ethical rules of life, I ought to be solemn and sad,
But, look you, I am bursting with joy.

I scold myself:
I say: Boy, your work has gone to pot:
You have scarcely enough money to last out the week:
And think of your responsibilities!
Whereupon, my heart bubbles over,
I puff on my pipe, and think how solemnly the world goes by my window,
And how childish people are, wrinkling their foreheads over groceries and rent.

For here jets life fresh and stinging in the vivid air:
The winds laugh to the jovial Earth:
The day is keen with Autumn's fine flavor of having done the year's work.
Earth, in her festival, calls her children to the crimson revels.
The trees are a drunken riot: the sunshine is dazzling . . .

Yes, I ought, I suppose, to be saddened and tragic:
But joy drops from me like ripe apples.

~~

James Oppenheim (1882-1932)

from War and Laughter, 1916

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

James Oppenheim biography

October Afternoon in Dublin / Mary Devenport O'Neill

October Afternoon in Dublin

The wet roads were like pewter bands;
The hilltops had a hard wet line;
There was no sign
Of warmth but in the fresh-lit lamps,
Although the driving rain
Was done at last;
One seemed to see
As well as hear the wind –
Watching the clouds and trees
And the cold crouching people hurrying past.

~~
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

An Autumnal Thought / Adam Hood Burwell

An Autumnal Thought

Sadly blows the rushing gale,
          Sadly roars the foaming stream,
Languid looks the faded vale,
          Pale, and faint Sol’s beam.

Varied hues the mountain’s side
          Gives to the spectator’s eye;
All its beauty, all its pride,
          Soon shall wither, soon shall die.

Soon the elm’s gay summer robe,
          Yielding to th’ autumnal blast,
Soon the poplar’s sylvan dress,
          Verdant, coverings, will be cast.

Winter gathering in the North,
          Now invades th’ ethereal plain,
Calls his cold attendants forth,
          Blasting winds, and sleet, and rain.

Nature holds the gloomy pall
          That must shroud the closing year;
Shuts the scene, and lets fall
          O’er its tomb a frozen tear.

Such is man! his bloom decays;
          Life’s pale autumn soon draws near;
Death his glory prostrate lays,
          And rounds the winter of his year.

~~
Adam Hood Burwell (1790-1849)
from the Montreal Scribbler, November 1821

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Adam Hood Burwell biography

The Autumn / Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Autumn

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
    And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
    Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
    The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
    Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
    May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
    Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
    You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
    Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
    That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
    When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
    When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
    When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, —
    Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
    That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
    Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
    The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
    Look out o’er vale and hill —
In spring, the sky encircled them —
    The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold —
    Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
    Can ne’er be desolate.

~~
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
from Poetical Works, from 1826 to 1844, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning biography

Penny's Top 20 / September 2018

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

  1.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
  2.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
  3.  As imperceptibly as Grief, Emily Dickinson
  4.  Wonderful World, William Brighty Rands
  5.  Season's End, Raymond Holden
  6.  The New Year, Emma Lazarus
  7.  A Summer Night, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
  8.  Summer Night, Langston Hughes
  9.  Tripping down the field-path, Charles Swain
10.  I Have a Rendezvous with Death, Alan Seeger

11.  After Summer, Philip Bourke Marston
12.  September, Ethelwyn Wetherald
13.  Autumn, Frances Browne
14.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
15.  Envoy, Richard Dowson
16.  Card Game, Frank Prewett 
17.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
18.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
19.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons
20.  The Conjurer, George J. Dance


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