Tuesday, December 31, 2019

My Lady of the Sonnets, one word more /
Robert Norwood


XXX

My Lady of the Sonnets, one word more,
The last; and, after, let the silence fall.
Our year is ended, and things great and small
Glow with its glory; could we live it o'er,
What would we scatter from its precious store
Of pearl, chalcedony, and topaz — all
The many-jewelled moments that we call
Love's treasure — we who had not loved before!
Into that treasure plunge we both our hands,
The while we laugh, and love, and live again.
What rainbow-splendours and what golden sands
Fall from our fingers! . . . Now let come the pain
And steal the shadow, moan the wintry sea;
Locked is the casket: in your hands the key!

~~
Robert Norwood (1874-1932)
from His Lady of the Sonnets, 1915

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

Robert Norwood biography

Sunday, December 29, 2019

December Days / Caleb Prentiss


December Days

Ruthless winter's rude career
Comes to close the parting year;
Fleecy flakes of snow descend,
Boreal winds the welkin rend.
Reflect, oh man! and well remember
That dull old age is dark December;
For soon the year of life is gone,
When hoary hairs like snow come on.

~~
Caleb Prentiss (1771-1838)
from History of Paris, Maine, 1884

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Caleb Prentiss biography

Saturday, December 28, 2019

December / Rebecca Hey


December

As human life begins and ends with woe,
So doth the year with darkness and with storm.
Mute is each sound, and vanish'd each fair form
That wont to cheer us; yet a sacred glow —
A moral beauty,— to which Autumn's show,
Or Spring's sweet blandishments, or Summer's bloom,
Are but vain pageants,— mitigate the gloom,
What time December's angry tempests blow.
'Twas when the "Earth had doff'd her gaudy trim,
As if in awe," that she received her Lord;
And angels jubilant attuned the hymn
Which the church echoes still in sweet accord,
And ever shall, while Time his course doth fill,
'Glory to God on high! on earth, peace and good will!'

~~
Rebecca Hey

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Rebecca Hey bibliography

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Heaven's Man / AE Reiff



Heaven’s Man

Who then first found the cosmos in a man,
Divided minutes of his arc, set axis?
If man be heaven's, then heaven is for man,
And this his truth, how big the universe.
He is no sun that planets orb and orb,
Or like the moon, his body old and dead,
Nor is he earth, that planet swirling through
His sphere, or other, Mars or Jupiter.
What is man that heaven admired him,
Or sons of men to be so greeting them?
Creating heaven with a touch, his fingers,
God gave to man dominion of his hands.
In all the world and worlds beyond oh Lord,
I seek to serve you and to know your word.

~~
AE Reiff, 2019

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

A Christmas Carol / Aubrey de Vere


A Christmas Carol

They leave the land of gems and gold,
    The shining portals of the East;
For Him, the woman's Seed foretold,
    They leave the revel and the feast.

To earth their sceptres they have cast,
    And crowns by kings ancestral worn;
They track the lonely Syrian waste;
    They kneel before the Babe new born.

O happy eyes that saw Him first;
    O happy lips that kissed His feet:
Earth slakes at last her ancient thirst;
    With Eden's joy her pulses beat.

True kings are those who thus forsake
    Their kingdoms for the Eternal King;
Serpent, her foot is on thy neck;
    Herod, thou writhest, but canst not sting.

He, He is King, and He alone
    Who lifts that infant hand to bless;
Who makes His mother's knee His throne,
    Yet rules the starry wilderness.

~~
Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814-1902)
from Christmas: Its origin, celebration and significance as related in prose and verse, 1907

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

To-night ungather'd let us leave / Alfred Tennyson


CIV

To-night ungather'd let us leave
     This laurel, let this holly stand:
     We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas eve.

Our father's dust is left alone
     And silent under other snows:
     There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.

No more shall wayward grief abuse
     The genial hour with mask and mime;
     For change of place, like growth of time,
Has' broke the bond of dying use.

Let cares that petty shadows cast,
     By which our lives are chiefly proved,
     A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.

But let no footstep beat the floor,
     Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
     For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
     Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
     No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east

Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
     Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
     Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Sunday, December 22, 2019

The Shortest Day / Mary Devenport O'Neill


The Shortest Day

This is the shortest day,
‘Tis afternoon;
Warm with the fire I’ve loitered out to see
A pale wet mist
Hiding a yellow moon,
A bunch of jingling stares
Thickening the top of a bare Winter tree.

~~
Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967)
from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Bert Kaufmann, Misty Winter Afternoon, Anselt, Netherlands, 2010. 
CC BY, Wikimedia Commns

Mary Devenport O'Neill biography

Saturday, December 21, 2019

On December 21 / Amos Russel Wells


On December 21

Now let the weather do its worst,
With frost and sleet and blowing,
Rage like a bedlam wild and curst,
And have its fill of snowing.
Now let the ice in savage vise
Grip meadow, brook, and branches,
Down from the north pour winter forth
In roaring avalanches.

I turn my collar to the blast
And greet the storm with laughter:
Your day, old Winter! use it fast,
For Spring is coming after.
The world may wear a frigid air,
But ah! its heart is burning;
Soon, soon will May dance down this way:
The year is at the turning.

There's not a sabre-charge of cold
But brings the blossoms nearer;
By every frost-flower we shall hold
The violets the dearer.
So rage and hlow the drifting snow
And have your fill of sorrow:
The turning years bring smiles for tears;
We'll greet the spring to-morrow!

~~
Amos Russel Wells (1862-1933)
from Collected Poems, 1921

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

Amos Russel Wells biography

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Dust of Snow / Robert Frost


Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from New Hampshire, 1923

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

"Dust of Snow," performed by HamletTheMonkey (Guild of Thespian Puppets)

Robert Frost biography

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Blizzard / William Carlos Williams


Blizzard

Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down —
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes —
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there —
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), 1920
from Sour Grapes, 1921

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

Sunday, December 8, 2019

An Autumnal Thought / Robert Story


An Autumnal Thought

It is most meet and natural the sigh
Man heaves, when autumn's winds come wild and drear,
When the last lingering blossoms droop and die,
And whirl the shrivelled blossoms red and sear.
Returning spring, indeed, shall deck the year
With flowers and foliage rich as e'er she gave;
But these shall never, never re-appear!
These never more in gales of summer wave,
Adorn the woodland path, or scent the mountain cave.

All things are mutable. The strain we heard
In yon deep dell, is silent now — and May
Shall wake another strain, another bird;
Dead is the former tenant of the spray—
Gone with the leaves and flowers that green and gay
Concealed their songster! Yet fond man believes
The world of yesterday the same to-day;
And when he grieves at all, he only grieves
That in their blight his own he feelingly perceives.

Yet their blight is not his. They rise no more:
But man shall rise triumphant from the tomb!
The judgment-morn shall once again restore
The human-flowers death blighted — to resume
In fairer climes far more than former bloom!
And that high bloom no future blight shall fear,
But flourish still where heaven's own beams illume,
And dews supernal water it! No tear
Shall stain the happy cheek in that eternal year!

~~
Robert Story (1795-1860)
from Newcastle Magazine, December 1829

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Robert Story biography

Saturday, December 7, 2019

You went away in summertime / F.O. Call


You went away in summertime 

You went away in summertime
When leaves and flowers were young,
And birds still lingered in the fields
With many songs unsung.

Tm glad it was in summertime
When skies were clear and blue,
I could not say good-bye to you
And bear the winter too.

~~
F.O. Call (1878-1956)
from Acanthus and Wild Grape, 1920

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

Marcus Stone, The Parting by the River, 1865. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Sunday, December 1, 2019

After Rain / Edward Thomas


After Rain

The rain of a night and a day and a night
Stops at the light
Of this pale choked day. The peering sun
Sees what has been done.
The road under the trees has a border new
Of purple hue
Inside the border of bright thin grass:
For all that has
Been left by November of leaves is torn
From hazel and thorn
And the greater trees. Throughout the copse
No dead leaf drops
On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,
At the wind's return:
The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed
Are thinly spread
In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,
As if they played.
What hangs from the myriad branches down there
So hard and bare
Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see
On one crab-tree.
And on each twig of every tree in the dell
Uncountable
Crystals both dark and bright of the rain
That begins again.     

~~
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
from Last Poems, 1918

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

Penny's Top 20 / November 2019


Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in November 2019:

  1.  1915: The Trenches, Conrad Aiken
  2.  Raglan Road, Patrick Kavanagh
  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  4.  All Souls' Night, Frances Cornford
  5.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
  6.  Autumn, Christopher Brennan
  7.  November, Marorie Allen Seiffert
  8.  Coin of the Year, Clement Wood
  9.  
Demons, George J. Dance
10.  Lunar Paraphrase, Wallace Stevens

11.   November, Robert Bridges
12.  The Blue Heron, Theodore Goodridge Roberts
13.  Winter Solitude, Archibald Lampman
14.  Jonah, AE Reiff
15.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
16.  All Hallow's Night, Lizette Woodworth Reese
17.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
18.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff
19.  News, AE Reiff
20. New Year's Morning, Helen Hunt Jackson

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Coin of the Year / Clement Wood


Coin of the Year

November, you old alchemist,
Who would have thought
You could turn the high arrogance of golden-rod
To still plumes of silver?

~~
Clement Wood (1888-1950)
from Poetry, December 1917

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

Photo: AnRo0002, 2011. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Clement Wood biography

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Raglan Road / Patrick Kavanagh


Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay
O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say,
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay –
When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from The Irish Times, October 1946

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]


Patrick Kavanagh biography

Saturday, November 23, 2019

November / Robert Bridges


November

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled
Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun
Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed;
The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.

— Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands
Crestfallen, deserted, — for now all hands
Are told to the plough, — and ere it is dawn appear
The teams following and crossing far and near,
As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands
Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance
The heavy rooks, and daws grey-pated dance:
As awhile, surmounting a crest, in sharp outline
(A miniature of toil, a gem's design,)
They are pictured, horses and men, or now near by
Above the lane they shout lifting the share,
By the trim hedgerow bloom'd with purple air;
Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie
Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out
The small wrens glide
With a happy note of cheer,
And yellow amorets flutter above and about,
Gay, familiar in fear.

— And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky
Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter,
All the afternoon to the gardens fly,
From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter
Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel:
And here and there, near chilly setting of sun,
In an isolated tree a congregation
Of starlings chatter and chide,
Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel:
Suddenly they hush as one, —
The tree top springs, —
And off, with a whirr of wings,
They fly by the score
To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads more
Dispute for the roosts; and from the unseen nation
A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing,
Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing,
Wrangling discordantly, incessantly,
While falls the night on them self-occupied;
The long dark night, that lengthens slow,
Deepening with Winter to starve grass and tree,
And soon to bury in snow
The Earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen stole,
Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole
Of how her end shall be.

~~
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
from Poetical Works, 1912

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

Robert Bridges biography

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Autumn / Christopher Brennan


Autumn

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world's middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
that speaks the winter's welcome malison
to fix it in the unremembering sleep:
the silent woods brood o'er an anxious deep,
and in the faded sorrow of the sun,
I see my dreams' dead colours, one by one,
forth-conjur'd from their smouldering palaces,
fade slowly with the sigh of the passing year.
They wander not nor wring their hands nor weep,
discrown'd belated dreams! but in the drear
and lingering world we sit among the trees
and bow our heads as they, with frozen mouth,
looking, in ashen reverie, towards the clear
sad splendour of the winter of the far south.

~~
Christopher Brennan (1870-1932), 1906
from Poems, 1913

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

Christopher Brennan biography

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Lunar Paraphrase / Wallace Stevens


Lunar Paraphrase

The moon is the mother of pathos and pity.

When, at the wearier end of November,
Her old light moves along the branches,
Feebly, slowly, depending upon them;
When the body of Jesus hangs in a pallor,
Humanly near, and the figure of Mary,
Touched on by hoar-frost, shrinks in a shelter
Made by the leaves, that have rotted and fallen;
When over the houses, a golden illusion
Brings back an earlier season of quiet
And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness —

The moon is the mother of pathos and pity.

~~
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), 1918
from Harmonium, 2nd edition, 1931

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

Wallace Stevens biography

Monday, November 11, 2019

1915: The Trenches / Conrad Aiken (I - II)


1915; The Trenches

I

All night long, it has seemed for many years,
We have heard the terrible sound of guns,
All night long we have lain and watched the calm stars.
We cannot sleep, though we are tired,
The sound of guns is in our ears,
We are growing old and grey,
We have forgotten many simple things.
Is this you? Is this I?
Will the word come to charge today? . . .
All night long, all night long,
We listen and cannot close our eyes,
We see the ring of violet flashes
Endlessly darting against the skies,
We feel the firm earth shake beneath us,
And all the world we have walked upon
Crumbles to nothing, crumbles to chaos,
Crumbles to incoherent dust;
Till it seems we can never walk again,
That it is foolish to have feet, foolish to be men,
Foolish to think, foolish to have such brains,
And useless to remember
The world we came from,
The world we never shall see again . . .
All night long we lie this way,
We cannot talk, I look to see what you are thinking,
And you, and you, –
We are all thinking, 'Will it come to-day?'
Get your bayonets ready, then –
See that they are sharp and bright,
See that they h ave thirsty edges,
Remember that we are savage men,
Motherless men who have no past . . .
Nothing of beauty to call to mind,
No tenderness to stay our hands . . .
. . . We are tired, we have thought all this before,
We have seen it all and thought it all,
Our thumbs are calloused with feeling the bayonet's edge,
We have known it all and felt it all
Till we can know no more.


II

All night long we lie
Stupidly watching the smoke puff over the sky,
Stupidly watching the interminable stars
Come out again, peaceful and cold and high,
Swim into the smoke again, or melt in a flare of red . . .
All night long, all night long,
Hearing the terrible battle of guns,
We think we shall soon be dead,
We sleep for a second, and wake again,
We dream we are filling pans and baking bread,
Or hoeing the witch-grass out of the wheat,
We dream we are turning lathes,
Or open our shops, in the early morning,
And look for a moment along the quiet street . . .
And we do not laugh, though it is strange
In a harrowing second of time
To traverse so many worlds, so many ages,
And come to this chaos again,
This vast symphonic dance of death,
This incoherent dust.

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]
Read the complete poem here.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

1915: The Trenches / Conrad Aiken (III - IV)

from 1915: The Trenches

III

We are growing old, we are older than the stars:
You whom I knew a moment ago
Have walked through ages of silence since then,
Memory is forsaking me,
I no longer know
If we are one or two or the blades of grass . . .
All night long, lying together,
We think in caverns of dreadful sound,
We grope among falling boulders,
We are overtaken and crushed, we rise once more,
Performing, wearily,
The senseless things we have performed so often before.
Yesterday is coming again,
Yesterday and the day before,
And a million others, all alike, one by one,
Sulphurous clouds and a red sun,
Sulphurous clouds and a yellow moon,
And a cold drizzle of endless rain
Driving across them, wetting the barrels of guns,
Dripping, soaking, pattering, slipping,
Chilling our hands, numbing our feet,
Glistening on our chins.
And then, all over again, after grey ages,
Sulphurous clouds and a red sun,
Sulphurous clouds and a yellow moon . . .
I had my childhood once, now I have children,
A boy who is learning to read, a girl who is learning to sew,
And my wife has brown hair and blue eyes . . .
Our parapet is blown away,
Blown away by a gust of sound,
Dust is falling upon us, blood is dripping upon us,
We are standing somewhere between earth and stars,
Not knowing if we are alive or dead . . .
All night long it is so,
All night long we hear the guns, and do not know
If the word will come to charge to-day.


IV

It will be like that other charge –
We will climb out and run
Yelling like madmen in the sun
Running stiffly on the scorched dust
Hardly hearing our voices
Running after the man who points with his hand
At a certain shattered tree,
Running through sheets of fire like idiots,
Sometimes falling, sometimes rising.
I will not remember, then,
How I walked by a hedge of wild roses,
And shook the dew off, with my sleeve,
I will not remember
The shape of my sweetheart's mouth, but with other things
Ringing like anvils in my brain
I will run, I will die, I will forget.
I will hear nothing, and forget . . .
I will remember that we are savage men,
Motherless men who have no past,
Nothing of beauty to call to mind
No tenderness to stay our hands . . .

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]
Read the complete poem here.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

1915: The Trenches / Conrad Aiken (V - VII)

from 1915: The Trenches

V

We are tired, we have thought all this before,
We have seen it all, and thought it all.
We have tried to forget, we have tried to change,
We have struggled to climb an invisible wall,
But if we should climb it, could we ever return?
We have known it all, and felt it all
Till we can know no more . . .
Let us climb out and end it, then,
Lest it become immortal.
Let us climb out and end it, then,
Just for the change . . .
This is the same night, still, and you, and I,
Struggling to keep our feet in a chaos of sound.
And the same puff of smoke
Passes, to leave the same stars in the sky.


VI

Out there, in the moonlight,
How still in the grass they lie,
Those who panted beside us, or stumbled before us,
Those who yelled like madmen and ran at the sun,
Flinging their guns before them.
One of them stares all day at the sky
As if he had seen some strange thing there,
One of them tightly holds his gun
As if he dreaded a danger there,
One of them stoops above his friend,
By moon and sun we see him there.
One of them saw white cottage walls
With purple clematis flowers and leaves,
And heard through trees his waterfalls
And whistled under the eaves;
One of them walked on yellow sand
And watched a young girl gathering shells –
Once, a white wave caught her hand . . .
One of them heard how certain bells
Chimed in a valley, mellow and slow,
Just as he turned to go . . .


VII

All night long, all night long,
We see them and do not remember them,
We hear the terrible sounds of guns,
We see the white rays darting and darting,
We are beaten down and crawl to our feet,
We wipe the dirt from mouths and eyes,
Dust-coloured animals creeping in dust,
Animals stupefied by sound;
We are beaten down, and some of us rise,
And some become a part of the ground,
But what do we care? We never knew them,
Or if we did it was long ago . . .
Night will end in a year or so,
We look at each other as if to say,
Across the void of time between us,
'Will the word come to-day?'

~~
Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
from Nocturne of Remembered Spring, and other poems, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain in the United States]
Read the complete poem here.

Conrad Aiken biography

Sunday, November 3, 2019

November / Marjorie Allen Seiffert


November

Where, like ghosts of verdant days
  Whispering down,
Leaves in the November haze
  Drift and drown,

Stand two lovers, motionless
  And apart
In their sturdy nakedness
  Of the heart —

Two dark figures, side by side
  In the mist,      
Standing as though time had died
  Since they kissed;

Whose deep roots, alive and sound
  Blindly reach,
Mingling in the fertile ground      
  Each with each.

Pray that we, when gaunt and old,
  Like bare trees
Through our common earth may hold
  Close like these!    

~~
Marjorie Allen Seiffert (1885-1970)
from Poetry, November 1917

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

Marjorie Allen Seiffert biography

Saturday, November 2, 2019

All Souls' Night / Frances Cornford


All Souls' Night

My love came back to me,
Under the November tree,
Shelterless and dim.
He put his hand upon my shoulder,
He did not think me strange or older,
Nor I him.

~~
Frances Cornford (1886-1960)

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Mohamed Hassan, Lovers Night, 2018. Public domain, Stockvault.net

Will Dockery Selected Poems released


The Selected Poems 1976-2019 of American poet Will Dockery, edited by Penny's Poetry Blog publisher George J. Dance, were published last month in the U.S.A. by Dockery, and in Canada by Principled Press (Dance's imprint). The book brings together poetry and song lyrics from all 5 decades of Dockery's career so far, to give an intimate look at the man and his work. You can order the book on Amazon.

Will Dockery has been a long-time contributor to Penny's Poetry Blog. A generous selection of his work, including several poems from his new book, can be read here.

Friday, November 1, 2019

Penny's Top 20 / October 2019


Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in October 2019:

  1.  Demons, George J. Dance
  2.  Under the harvest moon, Carl Sandburg
  3.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
  4.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  5.  7/16/69, George J. Dance
  6.  An October Nocturne, Yvor Winters
  7.  Hallowe'en, Coningsby Dawson
  8.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
  9.  Autumn Love, John Byrne Leicester Warren

10.  Poppies in October, Sylvia Plath

11.   To the October Wind, Ethelwyn Wetherald
12.  All Hallow's Night, Lizette Woodworth Reese
13.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
14.  October, Paul Hamilton Hayne
15.  News, AE Reiff
16.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
17.  Christ Walks in this Infernal District Too, Malcolm Lowry
18.  The Motive for Metaphor, Wallace Stevens
19.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme
20.  Pines against the Light, Hector de Saint Denis Garneau


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Thursday, October 31, 2019

All Hallows Night / Lizette Woodworth Reese


All Hallows Night

Two things I did on Hallows Night:—
Made my house April-clear;
Left open wide my door
To the ghosts of the year.

Then one came in. Across the room
It stood up long and fair —
The ghost that was myself —
And gave me stare for stare.

~~
Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856-1935)
from Selected Poems, 1926

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

Lizette Woordworth Reese biography

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Hallowe'en / Coningsby Dawson


Hallowe'en

Hark to the patter of the rain,
Voices of dead things come again:
Feet that rustle the lush wet grass,
Lips that mutter, "Alas! Alas!"
And shadows that grope o'er my window-pane.

Poor outcast souls, you saw my light
And thought that I, on such a night,
Would pity take and bid you in
To warm your hands, so palely thin,
Before my fire which blazeth bright.

You come from hells of ice-cold clay
So pent that, striving every way.
You may not stir the coffin-lid;
And well you know that, if you did.
Darkness would come and not the day.

Darkness! With you 'tis ever dark;
No joy of skyward-mounting lark
Or blue of swallow on the wing
Can penetrate and comfort bring
You, where you lie all cramp'd and stark.

Deep sunk beneath the secret mould,
You hear the worm his length unfold
And slime across your frail roof-plank,
And tap, and vanish, like the rank
Foul memory of a sin untold.

And this your penance in the tomb:
To weave upon the mind's swift loom
White robes, to garb remorsefully
A Better Life — which may not be
Or, when it comes, may seal your doom.

Thus, side by side, through all the year,
Yet just apart, you wake and hear,
As men on land the ocean's strum,
Your Dead World's hushed delirium
Which, sounding distant, yet is near.

So near that, could he lean aside,
The bridegroom well might touch his bride
And reach her flesh, which once was fair,
And, slow across the pale lips where
He kissed her, feel his fingers glide.

So distant, that he can but weep
Whene'er she moans his name in sleep:
A cold-grown star, with light all spent,
She gropes the abyssmal firmament.
He hears her surging in the Deep.

Ever throughout the year 'tis thus
Till drones the dream-toned Angelus
Of Hallowe'en; then, underground,
Unto dead ears its voice doth sound
Like Christ's voice, crying, "Lazarus."

Palsied with haste the dead men rise
Groaning, because their unused eyes
Can scarce endure Earth's blackest night;
It wounds them as 'twere furious light
And stars were flame-clouds in the skies.

What tenderness and sad amaze
Must grieve lost spirits when they gaze
Beneath a withered moon, and view
The ancient happiness they knew —
The live, sweet world and all its ways!

Ho, Deadmen! for a night you're free
Till Dawn leads back Captivity,
To make your respite seem more dear
Mutter throughout your joy this fear:

"Who knows, within the coming year,
That God, our gaoler, may not die;
Then, who'd remember where we lie?
Who then will come to set us free?
Through all the ages this may be
Our final night of liberty."

Aye, hoard your moments miserly.

*   *   *

And yet . . . and yet, it is His rain
That drives against my window-pane.
Oh, surely all Earth's dead have rest
And stretch at peace in God's own breast,
And never can retum again!

And yet . . .

~~
Coningsby Dawson (1883-1959)
from A Vision of Florence, and other poems, 1916

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

Coningsby Dawson biography

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Demons / George J. Dance


Demons

We'd dress as ghosts or devils once a year
to run and yell like vandals home-to-home,
high on the sugar we’d take by threats of harm
we'd chant at every door – but there was no fear,
for we played out roles from long-forgotten darks
when noxious, flesh-bound demons stalked, who'd kill
or maim at whim – those who’d evade their rule
confined like sheep, asleep behind bars and locks.

My children's children dress and do the like,
but chaperoned (kids don't go out alone)
and only in the twilight; when it's night,
parent and child are locked within the home
because "It's just not safe these days" – a fact
so calmly noted: Demon-time is back.

~~
George J. Dance, 2009

[All rights reserved - used with permission

Demons and The End of Time in The Horrorzine.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

To the October Wind / Ethelwyn Wetherald


To the October Wind

Old playmate, showering the way
   With thick leaf storms in red and gold,
I’m only six years old to-day,
   You’ve made me feel but six years old.
In yellow gown and scarlet hood
   I whirled, a leaf among the rest,
Or lay within the thinning wood,
   And played that you were Red-of-breast.

Old comrade, lift me up again;
   Your arms are strong, your feet are swift,
And bear me lightly down the lane
   Through all the leaves that drift and drift,
And out into the twilight wood,
   And lay me softly down to rest,
And cover me just as you would
   If you were really Red-of-breast.

~~
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

Saturday, October 19, 2019

October / Paul Hamilton Hayne


October

The passionate Summer's dead! the sky's aglow,
     With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,
     As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
     Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured scrolls,
     To celebrate the summer's past renown;
     Ah, me! how regally the Heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods,
     And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
     That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,
     To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1855

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Poppies in October / Sylvia Plath


Poppies in October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly –

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

Oh my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frosts, in a dawn of cornflowers.

~~
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963}, 1962
from Ariel, 1965

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]


Sylvia Plath biography

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Autumn Love / John Byrne Leicester Warren


Autumn Love

The autumn brought my love to me.
     The birds sing not in spring alone;
For fancy all the year is free
     To find a sweetness of its own:
And sallow woods and crystal morn
Were sweeter than the budded thorn.

When redwings peopled brake and down
     I kissed her mouth: in morning air
The rosy clover dried to brown
     Beneath thro' all its glowing square.
Around the bramble berries set
Their beaded globes intenser jet.

True love, I whispered, when I fold
     To mine thy little lips so sweet,
The headland trembles into gold,
     The sun goes up on firmer feet.
And drenched in glory one by one
The terrace clouds will melt and run.

Our lips are close as doves in nest;
     And life in strength flows everywhere
In larger pulses through the breast
     That breathe with thine a mutual air.
My nature almost shrinks to be
In this great moment's ecstasy.

Lo, yonder myriad-tinted wood
     With all its phases golden-brown,
Lies calm; as if it understood,
     That in the flutter of thy gown
Abides a wonder more to me
Than lustrous leagues of forest sea.

And far and deep we heard the sound
     And low of pasture-going kine.
Your trembling lips spake not: I found
     Their silence utterly divine.
Again, the fluttering accents crept
Between them, failed, then how you wept!

~~
John Byrne Leicester Warren (1835-1895)
from Studies in Verse, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Byrne Leicester Warren biography

Sunday, October 6, 2019

An October Nocturne / Yvor Winters


An October Nocturne

The night was faint and sheer;
Immobile, road and dune.
Then, for a moment, clear,
A plane moved past the moon.

O spirit cool and frail,
Hung in the lunar fire!
Spun wire and brittle veil!
And tremblingly slowly higher!

Pure in each proven line!
The balance and the aim,
Half empty, half divine!
I saw how true you came.

Dissevered from your cause,
Your function was your goal.
Oblivious of my laws,
You made your calm patrol.

~~
Yvor Winters (1900-1968)
from Poetry, March 1938

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Under the harvest moon / Carl Sandburg

from Days

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

~~
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
from Poetry, October 1915

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

Carl Sandburg biography

"Under the Harvest Moon" read by Eugene Burger. Courtesy The Artistic Nomad.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Penny's Top 20 / September 2019


Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2019:

  1.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3.  7/16/69, George J. Dance
  4.  2 poems on summer's end, Emily Dickinson
  5.  Rich Days, W.H. Davies
  6.  Composed upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth
  7.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons
  8.  September, Lucy Maud Montgomery
  9.  Rondel for September, Karle Wilson Baker

10.  The Day is a Poem, Robinson Jeffers

11.  September in the Laurentian Hills, William Wilfred Campbell
12.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff
13.  On an Apple-Ripe September Morning, Patrick Kavanagh
14.  Autumn Rain, Pearl Andelson Sherry
15.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
16.  The Motive for Metaphor, Wallace Stevens
17.  A Summer's Night, Paul Laurence Dunbar
18.  As imperceptibly as Grief, Emily Dickinson
19.  The Poplars, Bernard Freeman Trotter
20.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Sunday, September 29, 2019

September in the Laurentian Hills /
William Wilfred Campbell


September in the Laurentian Hills 

Already Winter in his sombre round,
     Before his time, hath touched these hills austere
With lonely flame. Last night, without a sound,
     The ghostly frost walked out by wood and mere.
And now the sumach curls his frond of fire,
     The aspen-tree reluctant drops his gold,
And down the gullies the North's wild vibrant lyre
     Rouses the bitter armies of the cold.

O'er this short afternoon the night draws down,
     With ominous chill, across these regions bleak;
Wind-beaten gold, the sunset fades around
     The purple loneliness of crag and peak,
Leaving the world an iron house wherein
Nor love nor life nor hope hath ever been.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918), 1895
from Beyond the Hills of Dream, 1899

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

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Autumn Rain / Pearl Andelson Sherry

from From a Bay-window

Autumn Rain

My world is a pane of glass. These only
Of the shadowy without are mine:
They that pass;
The gray birds fluttering by;
The cloud that sometimes sails
Over the chimney-bitten sky,
When all else fails.

To eyes hollow
With the gray distress
The passing swallow
Is all but a caress.

~~
Pearl Andelson Sherry (1899-1966)
from Poetry, December 1921

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

Pearl Andelson Sherry biography

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Rich Days / W.H. Davies


Rich Days

Welcome to you rich Autumn days,
Ere comes the cold, leaf-picking wind;
When golden stocks are seen in fields,
All standing arm-in-arm entwined;
And gallons of sweet cider seen
On trees in apples red and green.

With mellow pears that cheat our teeth,
Which melt that tongues may suck them in;
With blue-black damsons, yellow plums,
Now sweet and soft from stone to skin;
And woodnuts rich, to make us go
Into the loneliest lanes we know.

~~
W.H. Davies (1871-1940)
from The Bird of Paradise, and other poems, 1914

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

W.H. Davies biography

Saturday, September 21, 2019

2 poems on summer's end / Emily Dickinson


[1536]

There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away –


[1572]

We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh  –

~~
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poems are in the public domain worldwide]

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Rondel for September / Karle Wilson Baker


Rondel for September

You thought it was a falling leaf we heard:
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet;
A sound so reticent it scarcely stirred
The ear, so still a message to repeat, —
"I go, and lo, I make my going sweet."
What wonder you should miss so soft a word?
You thought it was a falling leaf we heard:
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet.

With slender torches for her service meet
The golden-rod is coming; softer slurred
Midsummer noises take a note replete
With hint of change; who told the mocking-bird?
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet —
You thought it was a falling leaf we heard.

~~
Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960)
from Blue Smoke: A book of verses, 1919

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

Karle Wilson Baker biography

Saturday, September 14, 2019

The Day is a Poem / Robinson Jeffers


The Day is a Poem

(September 19, 1939)

This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we heard his voice.
A man of genius: that is, of amazing
Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child's soul,
Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child
Wailing in Danzig, invoking destruction and wailing at it.
Here, the day was extremely hot: about noon
A south wind like a blast from hell's mouth spilled a slight rain
On the parched land, and at five a light earthquake
Danced the house, no harm done. Tonight I have been amusing myself
Watching the blood-red moon droop slowly
Into black sea through bursts of dry lightning and distant thunder.
Well, the day is a poem; but too much
Like one of Jeffers's, crusted with blood and barbaric omens,
Painful to excess, inhuman as a hawk's cry.

~~
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), 1941
from The Double Axe, and other poems, 1948 

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]


"The Day is a Poem" read by Robinson Jeffers

Sunday, September 8, 2019

September / Lucy Maud Montgomery


September

Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days
Gleaned by the year in autumn’s harvest ways,
With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember,
Some crimson poppy of a late delight
Atoning in its splendor for the flight
Of summer blooms and joys ­–
This is September.

~~
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
from The Watchman, and other poems, 1916

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

Lucy Maud Montgomery biography

Saturday, September 7, 2019

On an Apple-Ripe September Morning /
Patrick Kavanagh


On an Apple-Ripe September Morning

On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In cassidy’s haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.

And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused
The best job at the mill
with plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round . . .
And then I came to the haggard gate
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Tarry Flynn, 1948

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Composed upon Westminster Bridge /
William Wordsworth


Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

~~
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
from Poems in Two Volumes, 1807

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

Penny's Top 20 / August 2019


Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in August 2019:

  1.  7/16/69, George J. Dance
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3.  Break Break Break, Alfred Tennyson
  4.  Beach Song, Pearl Andelson Sherry
  5.  "I Thought of You" / On the Dunes, Sara Teasdale
  6.  By the Sea, Christina Rossetti
  7.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
  8.  The Wind Sleepers, H.D.
  9.  By the Sea, Emily Dickinson

10.  August, Lizette Woodworth Reese

11.  On the Road to the Sea, Charlotte Mew
12.  August, Dorothy Parker
13.  Angel Standing in the Sun, AE Reiff
14.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
15.  News. AE Reiff
16.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
17.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
18.  I love to see the summer beaming forth, John Clare
19.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud
20.  The Intruder, Grace Stone Coates


Source: Blogger, "Stats"