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


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

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


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

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


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

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