November Snow / F.O. Call

November Snow

My garden is a ghost of summer’s glory —
A dim reminder of departed things —
Dead flowers haunted by the ghostly wings
Of bees upon a honey-seeking foray,
A few brown quivering stalks that tell the story
Of sun-drenched summer hours and far-off springs,
White shivering birches where no oriole sings,
Dark spires of spruce with snow bent down and hoary.

This cannot be the place with tulips glowing
Through which at sunset humming-birds would dart
On unseen wings. The drifting snow is blowing
Along bare pathways leading far apart.
O strange white blossoms in my garden growing!
O strange white silence fallen on my heart!

~~
F.O. Call (1878-1956)
from Blue Homespun, 1924

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

F.O. Call biography

November: An ode (I-IV) / John Seally

from November: An ode

I

Now Sol but faintly lends his radiant beams,
Creation's better half in silence laid;
Old Time with solemn pace
Begins his wint'ry reign.


II

See! sable clouds in wild disorder rise,
Born on the wings of raging northern blasts,
That flood the trembling plain
And leafless trees lay waste:
Down the rough precipice in thunder roars—
A grandeur that exalts th' ennobled mind!


III

A silver frost succeeds
Wildly magnificent!
The distant hills rear up their hoary head,
While pendent icicles like diamonds shine:
Thus clad in rich disguise,
Each object nature brightens.


IV

In frosted marshes see the nodding reed,
Seem polish'd lances in a hostile field:
The myriad atoms fly,
If but a gust of wind;
While moping birds the rattling branches shun,
And in a spangled show'r the prospect ends.

~~
John Seally (1741-1795)
from London Magazine, 1770

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Seally biography
Read the complete ode here

November / Karle Wilson Baker (4 poems)

November

1. Leaves

My great trees are stripping themselves,
Throwing away their gauds,
Preparing for the winter of their souls.
But my little cedars
Are picking up the twisted golden baubles
And sticking them in their hair.


2. Overhead Travellers 

There you go in your breathless wedge,
Melting across the sky over my house like a clamoring shadow!
My heart leaps, and I flap my wings wildly,
But I cannot go just yet.
My fledglings do not grow so fast as yours,
I must scratch for them longer.
But some day, we, too, shall take the air-lines
My mate and I.
(Unless, indeed, I shall have found real wings in the meantime.
In that case, it won't matter,
For I shall go farther than you, then, haughty birds.)


3. Grey Days

On a grey day
When I am alone,
My heart glows and blooms
Like embers among ashes.

On a grey day
When I am alone,
The tent-fires of nomads,
And the road-fires of palmers,
And the hearth-fires of builders
Burn in my spirit.


4. Acorns

Now and then, all through the day and night,
An acorn drops on the roof and goes rattling down the gutter.
I cannot tell why the sound delights me,
Or why I have such a pleased and noticed feeling,
As of a child that shares a joke with its parent,
When I think of the black old oak
Stretching his craggy arms over my roof-tree
And dropping his polished pebbles on my house.

~~
Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960)
from Burning Bush, 1922

[Poems are in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Karle Wilson Baker biography

November: A dirge / J.R. Ramsay

November: A dirge

Departing wild birds gather
     On the high branches, ere they haste away,
Singing their farewell to the frigid ether
     And fading day,
To sport no more on withered mead or heather;
     No longer gay.

The little cricket's singing
     Sounds lonely in the crisp and yellow leaves,
Like bygone tones of tenderness upbringing
     A thought that grieves :
A bell upon a ruined turret ringing
     On Sabbath eves.

The tempest-loving raven,
     Pilot of storms across the silent sky,
Soars loftily along the heaving heaven
     With doleful cry,
Uttering lone dirges. Thistle-beards are driven
     Where the winds sigh.

And yet here is a flower
     Still lingering, by the changing season spared,
And a lone bird within a leafless bower
     Two friends, who dared
To share the shadows of misfortune's hour,
     Though unprepared.

~~
J.R. Ramsay (1879-1904)
from Win-on-ah, or, The forest light; and other poems, 1869

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J.R. Ramsay biography

In Flanders Fields / John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.

~~
John McCrae (1872-1918) 
from In Flanders Fields, and other poems, 1919

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

John McCrae biography

Candles that Burn / Aline Kilmer

Candles that Burn

Candles that burn for a November birthday,
   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,
As you go upward in your radiant dying
   Carry my prayer to God.

Tell Him she is so small and so rebellious,
   Tell Him her words are music on her lips,
Tell Him I love her in her wayward beauty
   Down to her fingertips.

Ask Him to keep her brave and true and lovely,
   Vivid and happy, gay as she is now,
Ask Him to let no shadow touch her beauty,
   No sorrow mar her brow.

All the sweet saints that came for her baptising,
   Tell them I pray them to be always near.
Ask them to keep her little feet from stumbling,
   Her gallant heart from fear.

Candles that burn for a November birthday,
   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,
As you go upward in your radiant dying,
   Carry my prayer to God.

~~
Aline Kilmer (1888-1941)
from Candles that Burn, 1919

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

Aline Kilmer biography

Demeter in November / Mary Josephine Benson

Demeter in November

Her fingers pluck at the window-ledge —
               Demeter’s, come like a graveless ghost —
They pry and pluck like a rifting wedge
And she calls with the voice of the wind in sedge,
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

The Mother of Earth grew crazed o’ernight —
               Demeter roams November-tossed —
And her hair, erst twined with wheat-ears bright
And poppies, is rent as she seeks in fright
               Persephone, her lost.

The flowers of all the earth are dead,
               Transfixed and grey and rimed with frost,
And its heavy corn is harvested —
Demeter shivers and shrieks in dread,
               “Persephone is lost!”

Has the scythe then circled thy fairest child,
               Demeter, and is thy questing crost,
That thou go’st with mien so changed and wild?
Is thy daughter by Death or Life beguiled,
               Persephone, thy lost?

In at each curtain she peers and raves,
               Now here must pause, now hence must post,
Then speeds to the ocean to scan the waves,
Or hastes to her furrows that gloom like graves —
               Persephone is lost.

Athwart the rain and the riven cloud
               Demeter, gone like a driven ghost,
At window of cot or castle proud
Is wailing low and is calling loud —
               “Persephone — lost — lost!”

~~
Mary Josephine Benson (1887-1965)
from My Pocket Beryl, 1921

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

Mary Josephine Benson biography

November's Cadence / James Carnegie

November's Cadence

The bees about the Linden-tree,
When blithely summer blooms were springing,
Would hum a heartsome melody,
The simple baby-soul of singing;
And thus my spirit sang to me    
When youth its wanton way was winging:
   “Be glad, be sad — thou hast the choice —
   But mingle music with thy voice.”

The linnets on the Linden-tree,
Among the leaves in autumn dying,
Are making gentle melody,
A mild, mysterious, mournful sighing;
And thus my spirit sings to me
While years are flying, flying, flying:
   “Be sad, be sad, thou hast no choice,
   But mourn with music in thy voice.”

~~
James Carnegie, Earl of Southesk (1827-1905)
from The Burial of Isis, and other poems, 1884

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

James Carnegie, Earl of Southesk biography

Penny's Top 20 / October 2018

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

  1.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
  2.  The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  4.  One Day in Autumn, David Morton
  5.  The Autumn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  6.  Immoral, James Oppenheim
  7.  October Afternoon in Dublin, Mary Devenport O'Neill
  8.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
  9.  An Autumnal Thought, Adam Hood Burwell
10.  The Sower, Charles G.D. Roberts 

11.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens
12.  October, Robert Bridges
13.  The Conjurer, George J. Dance
14.  The Mother (II), William Wilfred Campbell
15.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
16.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme
17.  Puella Parvula, Wallace Stevens
18.  October Snow, Lew Sarett
19.  Autumn, Frances Browne
20.  shanghai, David Rutkowski


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