Dirge of the Departed Year / John Leyden

Dirge of the Departed Year

To Olivia

Malaya's woods and mountains ring
     With voices strange but sad to hear;
And dark unbodied spirits sing
     The dirge of the departed year.

Lo! now, methinks, in tones sublime,
     As viewless o'er our heads they bend,
They whisper, "thus we steal your time,
     Weak mortals! till your days shall end."

Then wake the dance, and wake the song.
     Resound the festive mirth and glee!
Alas! the days have pass'd along —
     The days we never more shall see.

But let me brush the nightly dews,
     Beside the shell-depainted shore,
And mid the sea-weeds sit to muse
     On days that shall return no more.

Olivia, ah! forgive the bard,
     If sprightly strains alone are dear:
His notes are sad, for he has heard
     The footsteps of the parting year.

'Mid friends of youth, belov'd in vain,
     Oft have I hail'd this jocund day.
If pleasure brought a thought of pain,
     I charm'd it with a passing lay.

Friends of my youth, for ever dear,
     Where are you from this bosom fled?
A lonely man I linger here,
     Like one that has been long time dead.

Fore-doom 'd to seek an early tomb,
     For whom the pallid grave-flowers blow,
I hasten on my destin'd doom,
     And sternly mock at joy or woe.

Yet, while the circling year returns,
     Till years to me return no more,
Still in my breast affection burns
     With purer ardour than before.

Departed year! thine earliest beam,
     When first it grac'd thy splendid round,
Beheld me by the Caveri's stream,
     A man unblest on holy ground.

With many a lingering step and slow,
     I left Mysura's hills afar,
Through Curga's rocks I past below,
     To trace the lakes of Malabar.

Sweet Malabar! thy suns, that shine
     With soften'd light through summer showers,
Might charm a sadder soul than mine
     To joy amid thy lotus-flowers.

For each sweet scene I wander'd o'er,
     Fair scenes that shall be ever dear,
From Curga's hills to Travencore —
     I hail thy steps, departed year!

But chief that in this eastern isle,
     Girt by the green and glistering wave,
Olivia's kind endearing: smile
     Seem'd to recall me from the grave.

When, far beyond Malaya's sea,
      I trace dark Soonda's forests drear,
Olivia! I shall think of thee;—
      And bless thy steps, departed year!

Each morn or evening spent with thee
     Fancy shall mid the wilds restore
In all their charms, and they shall be
     Sweet days that shall return no more.

Still may'st thou live in bliss secure,
     Beneath that friend's protecting care,
And may his cherish'd life endure
     Long, long, thy holy love to share.

~~

John Leyden (1775-1811) 
January 1806

from Poetical Works, 1875

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Leyden biography

The Day / Theodore Spencer

The Day

The day was a year at first
When children ran in the garden;
The day shrank down to a month
When the boys played ball.

The day was a week thereafter
When young men walked in the garden;
The day was itself a day
When love grew tall.

The day shrank down to an hour
When old men limped in the garden;
The day will last forever
When it is nothing at all.

~~
Theodore Spencer (1902-1949)
from Poems, 1940-1947, 1948

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

Theodore Spencer biography

Christmas 1915 / Percy MacKaye

Christmas 1915

Now is the midnight of the nations: dark
   Even as death, beside her blood-dark seas,
   Earth, like a mother in birth agonies,
Screams in her travail, and the planets hark
Her million-throated terror. Naked, stark
   Her torso writhes enormous, and her knees
   Shudder against the shadowed Pleiades
Wrenching the night’s imponderable arc.

Christ! What shall be delivered to the morn
   Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another
   Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother
Survive to know the blood-spent offspring, torn
   From her racked flesh?— What splendour from the smother?
What new-wing’d world, or mangled god still-born?

~~
Percy MacKaye (1875-1956)
from A Treasury of War Poetry, 1917

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

Percy MacKaye biography

Cease Fire / George J. Dance

Cease Fire 

For one full day we got to stop the business
Of trying to kill each other. We could stand,
And leave the trench, and meet in no-man's-land
To wish the other side a Merry Christmas.

One Hun pulled out a flask, gave me a drink –
I shared my smokes – we played a few card tricks,
Then showed our wives' and kids' and girly pics,
Said "Aww", and did the old nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

I saw a thing I never thought I'd see –
In different coloured clothes, a man like me –
And now I understand that man's my brother;

But understanding just compounds the crime,
For now I hear the sergeant's call: It's time
To go back out and try to kill each other.

~~
George J. Dance, 2018

from Logos, and other logoi, 2021

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

An Ode of the Birth of our Saviour / Robert Herrick

An Ode of the Birth of our Saviour

In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, O Jesu!
Thou pretty baby, born here
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
   Hadst for thy place
   Of birth, a base
Out-stable for thy court here.

Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers,
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffodils and roses,
Thy cradle, kingly stranger,
   As gospel tells,
   Was nothing else
But here a homely manger.

But we with silks, not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily work will dress thee,
And, as we dispossess thee
Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,
   Sweet babe, for thee
   Of ivory,
And plaster'd round with amber.

~~
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
from Noble Numbers, 1648

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Robert Herrick biography

A Christmas Song / William Cox Bennett

A Christmas Song

   Blow, wind, blow,
Sing through yard and shroud;
Pipe it shrilly and loud,
   Aloft as well as below;
Sing in my sailor’s ear      
The song I sing to you,
“Come home, my sailor true,
For Christmas that comes so near.”

   Go, wind, go,
Hurry his home-bound sail,      
Through gusts that are edged with hail,
   Through winter, and sleet, and snow;
Song, in my sailor’s ear,
Your shrilling and moans shall be,
For he knows they sing him to me
And Christmas that comes so near.

~~
William Cox Bennett (1820-1895)
from Songs for Sailors, 1872

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Cox Bennett biography

Christmas Comes Again / Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Christmas Comes Again

Let me be merry now, ’t is time;
     The season is at hand
For Christmas rhyme and Christmas chime,
     Close up, and form the band.

The winter fires still burn as bright,
     The lamp-light is as clear,
And since the dead are out of sight,
     What hinders Christmas cheer?

Why think or speak of that abyss
     In which lies all my Past?
High festival I need not miss,
     While song and jest shall last.

We’ll clink and drink on Christmas Eve,
     Our ghosts can feel no wrong;
They revelled ere they took their leave —
     Hearken, my Soldier’s Song:

“The morning air doth coldly pass,
Comrades, to the saddle spring;
The night more bitter cold will bring
Ere dying — ere dying.
Sweetheart, come, the parting glass;
Glass and sabre, clash, clash, clash,
Ere dying — ere dying.
Stirrup-cup and stirrup-kiss —
Do you hope the foe we’ll miss,
Sweetheart, for this loving kiss,
Ere dying — ere dying?”

The feasts and revels of the year
     Do ghosts remember long?
Even in memory come they here?
     Listen, my Sailor’s song:

“O my hearties. yo heave ho!
Anchor’s up in Jolly Bay —
Hey!
Pipes and swipes, hob and nob —
Hey!
Mermaid Bess and Dolphin Meg,
Paddle over Jolly Bay —
Hey!
Tars, haul in for Christmas Day,
For round the ’varsal deep we go;
Never church, never bell,
For to tell
Of Christmas Day.
Yo heave ho, my hearties O!
Haul in, mates, here we lay —
Hey!”

His sword is rusting in its sheath,
     His flag furled on the wall;
We’ll twine them with a holly-wreath,
     With green leaves cover all.

So clink and drink when falls the eve;
     But, comrades, hide from me
Their graves — I would not see them heave
     Beside me, like the sea.

Let not my brothers come again,
     As men dead in their prime;
Then hold my hands, forget my pain,
     And strike the Christmas chime.

~~
Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (1823-1902)
from Poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard biography

A Holiday / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Holiday

The Wife:
The house is like a garden,
The children are the flowers,
The gardener should come methinks
And walk among his bowers.
Oh! lock the door on worry
And shut your cares away,
Not time of year, but love and cheer,
Will make a holiday.

The Husband:
Impossible! You women do not know
The toil it takes to make a business grow.
I cannot join you until very late,
So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.

The Wife:
The feast will be like Hamlet
Without a Hamlet part:
The home is but a house, dear,
Till you supply the heart.
The Xmas gift I long for
You need not toil to buy;
Oh! give me back one thing I lack -
The love-light in your eye.

The Husband:
Of course I love you, and the children too.
Be sensible, my dear, it is for you
I work so hard to make my business pay.
There, now, run home, enjoy your holiday.

The Wife (turning):
He does not mean to wound me,
I know his heart is kind.
Alas! that man can love us
And be so blind, so blind.
A little time for pleasure,
A little time for play;
A word to prove the life of love
And frighten care away!
Tho' poor my lot in some small cot
That were a holiday.

The Husband (musing):
She has not meant to wound me, nor to vex -
Zounds! but 'tis difficult to please the sex.
I've housed and gowned her like a very queen
Yet there she goes, with discontented mien.
I gave her diamonds only yesterday:
Some women are like that, do what you may.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Purpose, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain wordwide]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

Decorating / Rik Roots

Decorating

I start with the lights. Good friends I’ve loved,
they start with the tree – sought and bought with bristles
and cones, balanced on a stand in the front room. Heirloom
baubles then mixed with glitter and gauzes, chocolates
and candlelights, each layer added as a conversation,
their story wrapping christmas fresh for the year. No,

I start with the lights, check each bulb in its socket
before I wind them round my plastic spruce, settle the plug,
switch the show on. I pause with each snowy card received:
a smile for the decoded signature; changed addresses noted
in my dieting address book, shedding its leaves. Then I tack
holly and mistletoe to my front door, a dozen
sticky berries to greet the unknown year.

~~
Rik Roots, December 2001
from PaleoRik, 2017 

This work by Rik Roots is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at http://poems.rikweb.org.uk/.

Rik Roots biography

little tree / E.E. Cummings

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see          i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look          the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

~~
E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
from The Dial, January 1920

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

E.E. Cummings biography

Winter Song / Lady Midnight

Midnight Song of the Seasons: Winter Song

Now if you want a friend who'll understand,
Observe the pine and cypress forests here
And how, through frost and blizzard, still they stand,
Unflinching in the coldness of the year.

~~
by Lady Midnight
Southern Dynasties yuefu 
from Midnight Songs, 4th century
Englished by George J. Dance, 2018

Wish to make good friend
Just look pine cypress forest
In frost not fall ground
Year cold without disloyalty

Midnight Songs at Penny's Poetry Pages

George J. Dance biography

All Things Burn / Goodridge MacDonald

All Things Burn

All things burn; burning white
snow consumes sun, alight
in grey, this December day:
— Never is the burning done.

At the street end, smoulder plumes
of poplar (and smoke-heavy hair
weighs upon hungry fingers ) — smoke
of ash-white limbs.

Burn, burn, O fiery feet, to brand
memorial minutes, for a wind
awakes, that will disperse
dust from the burning about the universe.

~~
Goodrige MacDonald (1897-1967)
from Recent Poems, 1957

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Goodridge MacDonald biography

Snow / Raymond Holden

Snow 

Last night a brooding cloud
Of undecided mist
Lay on the mountain pasture
And the brooks were loud.

Now running waters lie
Faint as far bells
Under a soft white silence
And the birds ask why.

~~

Raymond Holden (1894-1972)

from Granite and Alabaster, 1922

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

Raymond Holden biography

Age / Richard Garnett

Sonnet

I will not rail, or grieve when torpid eld
     Frosts the slow-journeying blood, for I shall see
     The lovelier leaves hang yellow on the tree,
The nimbler brooks in icy fetters held.
Methinks the aged eye, that first beheld
     The fitful ravage of December wild,
     Then knew himself indeed dear Nature’s child,
Seeing the common doom, that all compell’d.
No kindred we to her beloved broods,
     If, dying these, we drew a selfish breath;
But one path travel all her multitudes,
     And none dispute the solemn Voice that saith:
“Sun, to thy setting; to your autumn, woods;
     Stream, to thy sea; and man, unto thy death!”

~~
Richard Garnett (1835-1906)
from Io in Egypt, and other poems, 1859

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Garnett biography

Penny's Top 20 / November 2018

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

  1.  In Flanders Fields, John McCrae
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3.  November: A dirge, J.R. Ramsay
  4.  Candles that Burn, Aline Kilmer
  5.  November, Karle Wilson Baker
  6.  November: An ode, John Seally
  7.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
  8.  November Snow, F.O. Call
  9.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
10.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme

11.  November's Cadence, James Carnegie
12.  Demeter in November, Mary Josephine Benson
13.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
14.  The Blue Heron, Theodore Goodridge Roberts
15.  United Dames of America, Wallace Stevens
16.  A Pastoral, Robert Hillyer
17.  Red-Lipped Stranger, Will Dockery
18.  As at a Theatre, Wallace Stevens
19.  Frayed Page Soaked in Rain, Will Dockery
20.  The Conjurer, George J. Dance


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