August / Mary Slade

August

I come! I come! and the waving field
Its wealth of golden grain shall yield.
In the hush and heat of glowing noon,
The insects' hum is the only tune;
For the merriest birds forget to sing,
And sit in the shade with drooping wing.

But see! how the purpling grapes hang high,
And ripen beneath my sunny sky!
And see! how the fruits of the bending tree
Turn blushing and rosy cheeks to me!
And soon shall your garners be over-full
With gifts from the August bountiful.

~~
Mary Slade (1826-1882)

from The Children's Hour, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mary Slade biography

In August / Katharine Lee Bates

In August

Beside the country road with truant grace
Wild carrot lifts its circles of white lace.
From vines whose interwoven branches drape
The old stone walls, come pungent scents of grape.
The sumach torches burn; the hardhack glows;
From off the pines a healing fragrance blows;
The pallid Indian pipe of ghostly kin
Listens in vain for stealthy moccasin.
In pensive mood a faded robin sings;
A butterfly with dusky, gold-flecked wings
Holds court for plumy dandelion seed
And thistledown, on throne of fireweed.
The road goes loitering on, till it hath missed
Its way in goldenrod, to keep a tryst,
Beyond the mosses and the ferns that veil
The last faint lines of its forgotten trail,
With Lonely Lake, so crystal clear that one
May see its bottom sparkling in the sun
With many-colored stones. The only stir
On its green banks is of the kingfisher
Dipping for prey, but oft, these haunted nights,
That mirror shivers into dazzling lights,
Cleft by a falling star, a messenger
From some bright battle lost, Excalibur.

~~
Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929)
from The Retinue, and other poems, 1918

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

Katharine Lee Bates biography

Sunlight / AE Reiff

Sunlight

Sunlight pours down in cloudy days between
yellow patches of earth, as green stones steam
in the rain and sun. I am sitting there
with a cat who follows me everywhere,
watching the colors softly in the morning.
The cat cleans itself, its claws are in.
It is content to follow the seasons.
This summer the cats lay in cool places,
heads down, following the seasons.
I suspect the passage of time brings this ease.
The cat mellows, springs down. The day begins.

~~
AE Reiff, 1972

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

Encouragements for Planting
http://encouragementsforsuch.blogspot.com/

To the Summer Sun / Marguerite Wilkinson

To the Summer Sun
(Coronado)

Great sun, why are you pitiless?
All day your glance is hard and keen
Upon the hills that once were green,
Where Summer, sere and comfortless,
Now lies brown-frocked against the sky
And makes of them her resting place,
Since she has drunk the valleys dry.
You never turn away your face,
And I, who love you, can not bear
Your long, barbaric, searching look
Down through the low cool flights of air –
Your tirelessness I cannot brook;
For all my body aches with light,
And you have glutted me with sight,
With flooding color made me blind
To homely things more soft and kind,
Till I have longed for clouds to roll
Between you and my troubled soul –
Oh, great Beloved, hide away
That I may miss you for a day!

~~
Marguerite Wilkinson (1883-1928)
from Bluestone: Lyrics, 1920

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

Marguerite Wilkinson biography

Late Summer (Alcaics) / Edwin Arlington Robinson (ss 1-8)

Late Summer (Alcaics)

Confused, he found her lavishing feminine
Gold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;
  And yet she smiled. Why, then, should horrors
Be as they were, without end, her playthings?

And why were dead years hungrily telling her
Lies of the dead, who told them again to her?
  If now she knew, there might be kindness
Clamoring yet where a faith lay stifled.

A little faith in him, and the ruinous
Past would be for time to annihilate,
  And wash out, like a tide that washes
Out of the sand what a child has drawn there.

God, what a shining handful of happiness,
Made out of days and out of eternities,
  Were now the pulsing end of patience —
Could he but have what a ghost had stolen!

What was a man before him, or ten of them,
While he was here alive who could answer them,
  And in their teeth fling confirmations
Harder than agates against an egg-shell?

But now the man was dead, and would come again
Never, though she might honor ineffably
  The flimsy wraith of him she conjured
Out of a dream with his wand of absence.

And if the truth were now but a mummery,
Meriting pride's implacable irony,
  So much the worse for pride. Moreover,
Save her or fail, there was conscience always.

Meanwhile, a few misgivings of innocence,
Imploring to be sheltered and credited,
  Were not amiss when she revealed them.
Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.

continued ...

Late Summer (Alcaics) / Edwin Arlington Robinson (ss 9-17)

from Late Summer (Alcaics)

Also, he saw that while she was hearing him
Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;
  And while he told what cautious honor
Told him was all he had best be sure of,

He wondered once or twice, inadvertently,
Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,
  Long anchored and as long unladen,
Over the foam for the golden chances.

"If men were not for killing so carelessly,
And women were for wiser endurances,"
  He said, "we might have yet a world here
Fitter for Truth to be seen abroad in;

"If Truth were not so strange in her nakedness,
And we were less forbidden to look at it,
  We might not have to look." He stared then
Down at the sand where the tide threw forward

Its cold, unconquered lines, that unceasingly
Foamed against hope, and fell. He was calm enough,
  Although he knew he might be silenced
Out of all calm; and the night was coming.

"I climb for you the peak of his infamy
That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.
  No more for me unless you say more.
All you have left of a dream defends you:

"The truth may be as evil an augury
As it was needful now for the two of us.
  We cannot have the dead between us.
Tell me to go, and I go." — She pondered:

"What you believe is right for the two of us
Makes it as right that you are not one of us.
  If this be needful truth you tell me,
Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter."

She gazed away where shadows were covering
The whole cold ocean's healing indifference.
  No ship was coming. When the darkness
Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.

~~
Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
from The Three Taverns: A book of poems, 1920

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

Edwin Arlington Robinson biography

August / Annette Wynne

August

August days are hot and still,
Not a breath on house or hill,
Not a breath on height or plain,
Weary travelers cry for rain;
But the children quickly find
A shady place quite to their mind;
And there all quietly they stay,
Until the sun has gone away,—
August is too hot for play!

~~
Annette Wynne (1919-1922 fl.)

from For Days and Days, 1919.

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

Annette Wynne biography

Photo: Daniela Dimitrova, Pixabay 

At the Seaside / Robert Louis Stevenson

At the Seaside

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
      To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
      Till it could come no more.

~~
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
from A Child's Garden of Verses, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain]

Robert Louis Stevenson biography

Evening on Calais Beach / William Wordsworth

from Miscellaneous Sonnets

XXXIII

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder — everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

Stanzas for Music / Lord Byron

Stanzas for Music

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

~~
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
from Poems, 1816

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lord Byron biography

Penny's Top 20 / July 2020

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in July 2020:

  1.  Summer in the South, Paul Laurence Dunbar
  2.  The moon and stars are making love, George J. Dance

  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  4.  July, George Meredith
  5.  A something in a summer's Day, Emily Dickinson
  6.  Wood and Stones, John Cowper Powys
  7.   Summer Day, John McClure
  8.  Summer, David Morton
  9.  United Dames of America, Wallace Stevens
10.  July, Rebecca Hey

11.  July, Madison Cawein
12.  An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy, Charles G.D. Roberts
13.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
14.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
15.  Sweet Wild April, William Force Stead
16.  The River, Frederick George Scott
17.   Philomela, Philip Sidney
18.  To the Swimmer, Countee Cullen
19.  June Rain, Richard Aldington 

20. A Father to His Son, Carl Sandburg

Source: Blogger, "Stats"