June / Francis Ledwidge

June

Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by,
And plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there,
And let the window down. The butterfly
Floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair
Tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs
Above her widespread wares, the while she tells
The farmers' fortunes in the fields, and quaffs
The water from the spider-peopled wells.

The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo's light,
While siren-like the pollen-stainèd bees
Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,
Nor fear the clappers of the farmer's boy,
Who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade.

And loop this red rose in that hazel ring
That snares your little ear, for June is short
And we must joy in it and dance and sing,
And from her bounty draw her rosy worth.
Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
The wind wheel north to gather in the snow,
Even the roses spilt on youth's red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go.

~~
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
from Songs of the Fields, 1916

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

Francis Ledwidge biography

Joy-Month / David Atwood Wasson

Joy-Month

Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings!
     How he pours the dear pain of his gladness!
What a gush! and from out what golden springs!
     What a rage of how sweet madness!

And golden the buttercup blooms by the way,
     A song of the joyous ground;
While the melody rained from yonder spray
     Is a blossom in fields of sound.

How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves!
     How whispers each blade, "I am blest!"
Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives,
     With the costliest bliss of his breast.

Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature!
     By cups of field and of sky,
By the brimming soul of every creature! -
     Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I.

Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues! -
     Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree,
To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs!
     They utter the heart in me.

~~
David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887), 1858
from Poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

David Atwood Wasson biography

The Breezes of June / Paul Hamilton Hayne

The Breezes of June

            Oh! sweet and soft,
            Returning oft,
      As oft they pass benignly,
The warm June breezes come and go,
Through golden rounds of murmurous flow,
            At length to sigh,
            Wax faint and die,
Far down the panting primrose sky,
                Divinely!

            Though soft and low
            These breezes blow,
      Their voice is passion's wholly;
And ah! our hearts go forth to meet
The burden of their music sweet,
            Ere yet it sighs,
            Faints, falters, dies
Down the rich path of sunset skies —
                Half glad, half melancholy!

            Bend, bend thine ear!
            Oh! hark and hear
        What vows each blithe new-comer,
Each warm June breeze that comes and goes,
Is whispering to the royal rose
        And star-pale lily, trembling nigh,
        Ere yet in subtlest harmony
            Its murmurs die,
            Wax faint and die
On thy flushed bosom, passionate sky
                Of youthful summer!

~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography

Saving Daylight / C.M. Davidson-Pickett

Saving Daylight

Suppose for a moment you live in a land,
Amazed at what happens during summer solstice.
Very strange things begin to occur,
Instantly, there is little darkness,
Night that we are so used to
Gone; what is left are the brilliant colors.

Daylight from dusk to dawn to dusk again,
Alight in all its energy and brightness.
Yes, we are north of the sixtieth parallel;
Land of the midnight sun.
I have been here before and seen things,
Gazed upon the horizon, waiting for darkness to reappear,
Holding on to summer in all its life, love and beauty;
To see it ebb once more as daylight fades to night.

~~
C.M. Davidson-Pickett, 2015

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Daniel Case, Midnight sun over spruce trees, Inuvik, NT, 2015. 

Licensed CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

abandon / david rutkowski

abandon

today my son plays bach
with an abandon that leaves us
orphaned – is it phases
of his mommy's moon
or my gene pool double-parked

today the birds will chant
their calligraphs
to soften our migration
into morning

my son plays prokofieff
picking the cuffs
of dissonance
to save us from oblivion

yes the universe breathes
in spite of the too tight
repertoire
of the human mind

~~
David Rutkowski, 2011

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

The Tree of My Life / Edward Rowland Sill

The Tree of My Life

When I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a tree,
A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to me.
What a wonderful thing it seemed! with its lace-edged leaves uncurled,
And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grandest tree in the world!
So I searched all the garden round, and out over field and hill,
But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward will.
I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and quiet vale;
I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the gale.

Then I said, "I will cover its roots with a little earth by the door,
And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a place once more."
But still I could never find it, the place for my wondrous tree,
And it waited and grew by the door, while years passed over me;
Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too tall,
And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved at all.

So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door;
Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of yore,
But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled shade,
The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees have played,
Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge there,
And the stars through its silent boughs shine gloriously fair.

~~
Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)
from Poetical Works, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Rowland Sill biography

One Sister have I in our house / Emily Dickinson

[14]

One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There's only one recorded,
But both belong to me.

One came the road that I came —
And wore my last year's gown —
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.

She did not sing as we did —
It was a different tune —
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood —
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter —
Which shortened all the miles —

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew —
But took the morn —
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers —
Sue — forevermore!

~~
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Dickinson biography

Spring / R.

Spring

Infant Spirit of the Spring!
On thy fresh-plumed pinion, bring
Snow-drops like thy stainless brow —
Violet, primrose — cull them now,
With the cup of daffodil,
Which the fairies love to fill,
Ere each moon dance they renew,
With the fragrant honey dew;
Bring them, Spirit! — bring them hither
Ere the wind have time to wither;
Or the sun to steal their dyes,
To paint, at eve, the western skies,
Bring them for the wreath of one —
Fairest, best, that Time hath known.

Infant Spirit! dreams have told
Of thy golden hours of old,
When the amaranth was flung
O'er creation bright and young;
When the wind had sweeter sound
Than holiest lute-string since hath found;

When the sigh of angels sent
Fragrance through the firmament:
Then thy glorious gifts were shed
O'er full many a virgin head:
Of those forms of beauty, none
Gladden now this earth, save one!
Hither, then, thy blossoms bring,
Infant Spirit of the Spring!

~~
R. (fl. 1837)
from Friendship's Offering, 1837

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

This poem has sometimes been attributed to John Ruskin (1819-1900). However, E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn write in the introduction to volume II (Poems) of  The Works of John Ruskin (London: George Allen, 1903, xxxvii):
"Owing to the fact that Ruskin's early contributions to periodical literature were not signed with his name, but only with his initials, pieces written by other persons are sometimes attributed to him. In an American edition of his poems a piece entitled "Spring," and beginning "Infant spirit of the Spring," is included. It appeared in Friendship's Offering for 1837, pp. 383-384, where it is signed "R". Ruskin, however, stated that he certainly did not write it."
https://archive.org/details/worksofjohnruski02rusk/page/n45

Twilight on Sixth Avenue / Charles G.D. Roberts

Twilight on Sixth Avenue

Over the tops of the houses
    Twilight and sunset meet.
The green, diaphanous dusk
    Sinks to the eager street.

Astray in the tangle of roofs
    Wanders a wind of June.
The dial shines in the clock-tower
    Like the face of a strange-scrawled moon.

The narrowing lines of the houses
    Palely begin to gleam,
And the hurrying crowds fade softly
    Like an army in a dream.

Above the vanishing faces
    A phantom train flares on
With a voice that shakes the shadows, –
    Diminishes, and is gone.

And I walk with the journeying throng
    In such a solitude
As where a lonely ocean
    Washes a lonely wood.

~~
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)
from The Book of the Native, 1896

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

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

In June / Ethelwyn Wetherald

In June

The trees are full, the winds are tame,
The fields are pictures in a frame
    Of leafy roads and fair abodes,
Steeped in content too large for name.

Across a slender bridge of night
The luminous days are swift in flight,
    As though 'twere wrong to cover song
And scent and greenness from the light.

Within the snowy clouds above
Sits viewless Peace, a brooding dove;
    For every nest there beats a breast,
For every love some answering love.

The ways are thronged with angel wings,
The heart with angel whisperings;
    And as it seems in happy dreams
The bird of gladness sings and sings.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The Last Robin: Lyrics and sonnets, 1907

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

Penny's Top 20 / May 2019

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

  1.  Description of Spring, Henry Howard
  2.  I can remember, Stephan Pickering
  3.  Expecting Inspiration, George Sulzbach
  4.  A Song for Mother's Day, Marguerite Wilkinson
  5.  Saint Augustine Blues #6, Will Dockery
  6.  Early May in New England, Percy MacKaye
  7.  Ballade of the Poet's Thought, Charles G.D. Roberts
  8.  In the Glad Month of May, Coningsby Dawson
  9.  The Spring, Abraham Cowley
10.  Winds of May, James Joyce

11.  Penny; or, Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
12.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
13.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud
14.  It's September, Edgar Guest
15.  June Rain, Richard Aldington
16.  Ganesha Girl on Rankin, Will Dockery
17.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
18.  Christmas Eve, Edgar Guest
19.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme
20.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens

Source: Blogger, "Stats"