The Passing of the Year / Robert Service

The Passing of the Year

My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
     My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
     And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
     Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
     With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
     You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter's chime
     Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
     You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
     And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
     Let us all read, whate'er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
     Is it for dear ones you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
     For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
     What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right
     So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
     That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
     What golden gain, what pride of place?
What splendid hope? O Optimist!
     What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
     What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of a tragic doom?
     What dark, condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
     What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
     What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,
     The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
     And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
     Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!
     Old weary year! it's time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
     My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
     And I prepare to meet the New:
Old Year! a parting word that's true,
     For we've been comrades, you and I –
I thank God for each day of you;
     There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

~~ 
Robert Service (1874-1958)
from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, 1912

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

Robert Service biography

Under the Holly Bough / Charles Mackay

Under the Holly Bough

Ye who have scorned each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
     In this fast-fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
     Come gather here!

Let sinned against and sinning
Forget their strife's beginning,
     And join in friendship now.
Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
     Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
    In this fast-fading year:
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
    Come gather here;

And let your heart grow fonder,
As memory shall ponder
    Each past unbroken vow;
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing
     Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have nourished sadness,
Estranged from hope and gladness
     In this fast-fading year;
Ye with o'erburdened mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
     Come gather here.

Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow,
     If e'er you hoped, hope now.
Take heart,— uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces
     Under the Holly-Bough.

~~
Charles Mackay (1814-1889)
from Christmas with the Poets, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Towson High Music, "Under the Holly Bough"

Charles Mackay biography

A Christmas Carol / J. Ashby-Sterry

A Christmas Carol

'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe,
     When holly-berries glisten bright;
When Christmas fires gleam and glow
When wintry winds so wildly blow,
     And all the meadows round are white —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

How happy then are Fan and Flo,
     With eyes a-sparkle with delight!
When Christmas fires gleam and glow,
When dainty dimples come and go,
     And maidens shrink with feignëd fright —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

A privilege 'tis then, you know,
     To exercise time-honoured rite;
When Christmas fires gleam and glow
When loving lips may pout, although
    With other lips they oft unite —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

If Florry then should whisper "No!"
     Such whispers should be stifled quite,
When Christmas fires gleam and glow;
If Fanny's coy objecting "O!"
     Be strangled by a rare foresight —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

When rosy lips, like Cupid's bow,
     Assault provokingly invite,
When Christmas fires gleam and glow,
When slowly falls the sullen snow,
     And dull is drear December night —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

~~

J. Ashby-Sterry (1836-1917)

from The Lazy Minstrel, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J. Ashby-Sterry biography

Christmas Bells / Edward Capern

Christmas Bells

Ring out ye merry bells, welcome bright icicles,
Welcome old holly-crowned Christmas again,
Blythe as a child at play, keeping his holiday.
Welcome him in from the snow peak and plain.
Up with the holly bough, green from the winter’s brow;
Lock up your ledgers and cares for a day,
Out to the forest go, gather the mistletoe,
Old and young, rich and poor, up and away.

Up with the holly bough, ay and the laurel now,
In with the yule log and brighten the hearth.
Quick, he is here again, come with his joyous train:
Laughter and music and friendship and mirth.
Up with your holly boughs, high in each manor house,
Garnish the antlers that hang in the hall;
Yes, and the neck of corn with a gay wreath adorn,
Rich as the bloom on the cottager’s wall.

Wealth has its duties now, Christians you will allow;
Think then ye rich whilst your tables are spread?
Think of those wretched ones, poverty’s stricken sons,
Weeping whilst children are asking for bread.
Ring out ye merry bells, ring till your music swells,
Out o’er the mountain, and far on the main.
Ring till those cheerless ones catch up your merry tones,
Singing come Christmas again and again.

~~
Edward Capern (1819-1894)

from The Devonshire Melodist, 1861

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Capern biography

"Christmas Bells" performed by Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll. Courtesy Halsway Manor.

The time draws near the birth of Christ / Alfred Tennyson

XXVIII

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
     The moon is hid; the night is still;
     The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
     From far and near, on mead and moor,
     Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
     That now dilate, and now decrease,
     Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
     I almost wish'd no more to wake,
     And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
     For they controll'd me when a boy;
     They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule,

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

On the Winter Solstice / Mark Akenside

Ode II. On the Winter Solstice,  MD.CC.XL

The radiant ruler of the year
At length his wintry goal attains,
Soon to reverse the long career,
And northward bend his golden reins.
Prone on Potosi's haughty brow
His fiery streams incessant flow,
Prone rush the fiery floods of light
Ripening the silver's ductile stores;
While, in the cavern's horrid shade,
The panting Indian hides his head,
And oft th'approach of eve implores.

But lo, on this deserted coast
How pale the light! how thick the air!
Lo, armed with whirlwind, hail, and frost,
Fierce winter desolates the year.
The fields resign their cheerful bloom;
No more the breezes waft perfume,
No more the warbling waters roll:
Deserts of snow fatigue the eye,
Black storms involve the louring sky,
And gloomy damps oppress the soul.

Now through the town promisuous throngs
Urge the warm bowl and ruddy fire:
Harmonious dances, festive songs
To charm the midnight hours conspire.
While mute and shrinking with her fears,
Each blast the cottage-martron hears,
As o'er the hearth she sits alone:
At morn her bridgroom went abroad,
The night is dark and deep the road;
She sighs and wishes him at home.

But thou, my lyre, awake, arise,
And hail the sun's remotest ray:
Now, now he climbs the northern skies,
To-morrow nearer than today.
Then louder howl the stormy waste,
Be land and ocean worse defac'd,
Yet brighter hours are on the wing;
And fancy thro' the wintry glooms,
All fresh with dews and opening blooms,
Already hails th' emerging spring.

O fountain of the golden day!
Could mortal vows but urge thy speed,
How soon before thy vernal ray
Should each unkindly damp recede!
How soon each hovering tempest fly,
that now fermenting loads the sky,
Prompt on our heads to burst amain,
To rend the forest from the steep,
Or thundering o'er the Baltic deep,
To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!

But let not man's unequal views
Presume on nature and her laws:
'Tis his with grateful joy to use
Th' indulgence of the sov'reign cause;
Secure that health and beauty springs
Thro' this majestic frame of things,
Beyond what he can reach to know,
And that heav'n's all-subduing will,
With good the progeny of ill,
Attempers every state below.

How pleasing wears the wintry night,
Spent with the old illustrious dead!
While, by the taper's trembling light,
I seem those awful courts to tread
Where chiefs or legislators lie,
Whose triumphs move before my eye
With every laurel fresh-displayed;
While now I taste th' Ionian song,
Or bend to Plato's godlike tongue
Resounding through the olive shade.

But if the gay, well-natur'd friend
Bids leave the studious page awhile,
Then easier joys the foul unbend
And teach the brow a softer smile;
Then while the genial flass is paid
By each to her, that faires maid,
Whose radiant eyes his hopes obey,
What lucky vows his bosom warm!
While absence heightens every charm,
And love invokes returning May!

May! thou delight of heav'n and earth,
When will thy happy morn arise
When the dear place which gives her birth
Restore LUCINDA to my eyes?
There while she walks the wonted grove,
The seat of music and of love,
Bright as the one primeval fair,
Thither, ye silver-sounding lyres,
Thither, gay smiles and young desires,
Chast hope and mutual faith repair.

And if believing love can read
The wonted fortunes in her eye,
Then shall my fears, O charming maid,
And every pain of absence die:
Then ofter to thy name attun'd,
And rising to diviner sound,
I'll wake the free Horatian song:
Old Tyne shall listen to my tale,
And Echo, down the bordering vale,
The liquid melody prolong.

~~
Mark Akenside (1720-1773)
from Odes on Several Subjects, 1745

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mark Akenside biography

Autumn: An ode / John Hawkesworth

Autumn: An Ode

Alas! with swift and silent pace
Impatient Time rolls on the year,
The Seasons change, and Nature's face
Now sweetly smiles, now frowns severe.

'Twas Spring, 'twas Summer, all was gay,
Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow,
The flowers of Spring are swept away,
And Summer fruits desert the bough.

The verdant leaves that play'd on high,
And wanton'd on the western breeze,
Now trod in dust, neglected lie,
As Boreas strips the bending trees.

The fields that wav'd with golden grain,
As russet heaths are wild and bare;
Not moist with dew, but drench'd in rain;
Nor Health, nor Pleasure, wanders there.

No more, while thro' the midnight shade,
Beneath the moon's pale orb I stray,
Soft pleasing woes my heart invade,
As Progne pours the melting lay.

From this capricious clime she soars,
O! would some God but wings supply!
To where each morn the Spring restores,
Companion of her flight I'd fly.

Vain wish! me Fate compels to bear
The downward Season's iron reign,
Compels to breathe polluted air,
And shiver on a blasted plain.

What bliss to life can Autumn yield,
If glooms, and showers, and storms prevail,
And Ceres flies the naked field,
And flowers, and fruits, and Phoebus fail?

Oh! what remains, what lingers yet
To cheer me in the darkening hour?
The Grape remains! the friend of Wit,
In Love and Mirth of mighty power.

Haste, press the clusters, fill the bowl —
Apollo! shoot thy parting ray;
This gives the sunshine of the soul,
This, God of Health, and Verse, and Day.

Still, still, the jocund strain shall flow,
The pulse with vigorous rapture beat;
My STELLA with new charms shall glow,
And every bliss in wine shall meet.

 

~~

John Hawkesworth (1720-1773)

from A Collection of Poems in Four volumes; by several hands, 1770

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Hawkesworth biography

Autumn Fires / Robert Louis Stevenson

Autumn Fires

In the other gardens
     And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
     See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
      And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
     The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
     Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
     Fires in the fall!

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

[Poem is in the public domain]

Robert Louis Stevenson biography

Naked December have I curtained out/ Charles Leonard Moore

I

Naked December have I curtained out,
Its cobweb branches crossing the cold sky;
Dead am I to the hurrying flakes about,
Dead and close-tombed in Eastern luxury:
But not the fire's rich rapture with itself,
The carpet's glow, the painted air above,
The gleam of rich-clad volumes from the shelf,
The stained chessman or yon shadowy glove,
The mantel's romance of bronze-mailed knights,
The sometime showing fresco pastoral,
The curtains closing me with these delights
Deep, deep, unfathomably out of call,
     Not these, but dreams and reveries allowed
     Make me o'er all Time's empty triumphs proud. 

~~
Charles Leonard Moore (1854-1928)
from Book of Day-Dreams, 1888

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

Charles Leonard Moore biography

Connecticut Autumn / Hyam Plutzik

Connecticut Autumn

I have seen the pageantry of the leaves falling —
Their sere, brown frames descending brokenly,
Like old men lying down to rest.
I have heard the whisperings of the winds calling —
The young winds — playing with the old men —
Playing with them, as the sun flows west.

And I have seen the pomp of this earth naked —
The brown fields standing cold and resolute,
Like strong men waiting for the end.
Then have come the sudden gusts of winds awaked:
The broken pageantry, the leaves upflailed, the trees
Tremor-stricken, the giant branches rent.

And a shiver runs over the remnants of the brown grass —
And there is cessation . . . .
The processional recurs.

I have seen the pageantry.
I have seen the haggard leaves falling.
One by one falling.

~~
Hyam Plutzik (1911-1962)
from Aspects of Proteus, 1949

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada. Elsewhere, this poem by Hyam Plutzik may be duplicated for educational purposes. Copyright 2016 by Estate of Hyam Plutzik, all rights reserved.]

Hyam Plutzik biography

The Autumn Sheaf / Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

The Autumn Sheaf

Still I remember only autumn days,
When golden leaves were floating in the air,
And reddening oaks stood sombre in the haze,
Till sunset struck them with its redder glare,

And faded, leaving me by wood and field
In fragrant dew, and fragrant velvet mould,
To wait among the shades of night concealed,
And learn that story which but once is told.

Through many seasons of the falling leaves
I watched my failing hopes, and watched their fall;
In memory they are gathered now like sheaves,
So withered that a touch would scatter all.

Dead leaves, and dust more dead, to fall apart,
Leaves spreading once in arches over me,
And dust enclosing once a loving heart,
Still I am happy with youth's mystery.

It cannot be unbound,— my autumn sheaf;
So let it stand, the ruin of my past;
Returning autumn brings the old belief,
Its mystery all its own, and it will last.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard biography

Penny's Top 20 / November 2020

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in November 2020:

  1.  The World's Body, AE Reiff

  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Believe It or Not, George J. Dance

  4.  Digging, Edward Thomas

  5.  Autumn It Was, William Browne
  6.  Who Made the Law?, Leslie Coulson
  7.  November, Ethelwyn Wetherald

  8.  Goldenrod, John Banister Tabb
  9.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff
10.  November Blue, Alice Meynell

11.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
12.  To Himself in Autumn, Maurice Lesemann
13.  September in the Laurentian Hills, William Wilfred Campbell
14.  On the Beach in November, Edward Cracroft Lefroy
15.  Expecting Inspiration, George Sulzbach
16.  The Key, George J. Dance
17.  Spleen, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

18.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
19.  January, Robert Bridges

20. Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

November Blue / Alice Meynell

November Blue

The golden tint of the electric lights seems to give a complementary colour to the air in the early evening.
— ESSAY ON LONDON

O heavenly colour, London town
     Has blurred it from her skies;
And, hooded in an earthly brown,
     Unheaven’d the city lies.
No longer, standard-like, this hue
     Above the broad road flies;
Nor does the narrow street the blue
     Wear, slender pennon-wise.

But when the gold and silver lamps
     Colour the London dew,
And, misted by the winter damps,
     The shops shine bright anew —
Blue comes to earth, it walks the street,
     It dyes the wide air through;
A mimic sky about their feet,
     The throng go crowned with blue.

~~
Alice Meynell (1847-1922)
from Poems, 1921

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

Darek Zabrocki, London Night Rain, 2007. Courtesy Wallhere.com

Alice Meynell biography

November / Ethelwyn Wetherald

November

The old year’s withered face is here again,
     The twilight look, the look of reverie,
     The backward gazing eyes that seem to see
The full-leaved robin-haunted June remain
Through devastating wind and ruinous rain;
     A form that moves a little wearily,
     As one who treads the path of memory
Beneath a long year’s load of stress and stain.

Good-night! good-night! the dews are thick and damp,
     Yet still she babbles on, as loath to go,
          Of apple-buds and blooms that used to be,
Till Indian Summer brings the bedside lamp,
     And underneath a covering of snow 

          She dreams again of April ecstasy.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from Tangled in Stars: Poems, 1902

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

Goldenrod / John Banister Tabb

Goldenrod

As Israel, in days of old,
Beneath the prophet s rod,
Amid the waters, backward rolled,
A path triumphant trod;

So, while thy lifted staff appears,
Her pilgrim steps to guide,
The Autumn journeys on, nor fears
The Winter s threatening tide.

~~ 

John Banister Tabb (1845-1909)
from Poems, 1894

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Banister Tabb biography

Believe It or Not / George J. Dance

Believe It or Not

Ladies and gentleman: we recovered a bullet
at the hospital on the second victim's gurney.
When examined, the bullet was found to have
no trace of blood, no bone or tissue fragments,
no particles of thread or thread striations.

Nevertheless, our forensic panel
by careful reconstructon of the crime scene
and rigorous tests, has finally determined
that both the men were shot with that one bullet.

The bullet struck the first man in his back
below the shoulder, damaged his right lung,
and smashed a vertebra, causing it to deflect
and exit through his throat in what we thought
previously was another entrance wound.

The bullet then hit the man in the front seat,
entered his back just below the armpit
and pulverized five inches of a rib
which again caused the bullet to deflect
and exit on his right side at the nipple.

On exiting it grazed the man's right arm
and hit a cufflink, once again deflecting
into his wrist and shattering the bone
which caused the bullet to deflect again.

It then entered the second man's left thigh
embedded shallowly beneath the skin
and fell out later at the hospital.

Believe it or not, this single pristine bullet
alone caused seven entry and exit wounds
and passed through 15 inches of muscle tissue,
through seven layers of skin, 15 of clothing,
and through two bones, a radius and a rib.

With these new findings, we can say there is
no evidence of any second shooter
and therefore we conclude that one lone gunman
shot both the Governor and the President.

~~
George J. Dance, 2020

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

Digging / Edward Thomas

Digging

Today I think
Only with scents,– scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Thomas biography

Autumn It Was / William Browne

from The Shepheard's Pipe, the Fourth Eglogue

Under an aged Oke was WILLY laid,
WILLY, the lad who whilome made the rockes
To ring with joy, whilst on his pipe he plaid,
And from their maisters wood the neighb'ring flockes
But now o're-come with dolors deepe
That nye his heart-strings rent,
Ne car'd he for his silly sheepe,
Ne car'd for merriment.
But chang'd his wonted walkes
For uncouth paths unknowne,
Where none but trees might heare his plaints,
And eccho rue his mone.

Autumne it was, when droop'd the sweetest floures,
And Rivers (swolne with pride) orelook'd the bankes,
Poore grew the day of Summer's golden houres,
And void of sapp stood Ida's Cedar-rankes,
The pleasant meadows sadly lay
In chill and cooling sweats
By rising fountaines, or as they
Fear'd Winters wastfull threats.
Against the broad-spred Oke,
Each winde in fury beares;
Yet fell their leaves not halfe so fast
As did the Shepherdes teares.

~~
William Browne of Tavistock (?1590-1645?)
from The Shepheard's Pipe, and other eglogues, 1614

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Read the complete poem here

William Browne of Tavistock biography

On the Beach in November / Edward Cracroft Lefroy

On the Beach in November

My heart's Ideal, that somewhere out of sight
Art beautiful and gracious and alone,–
Haply, where blue Saronic waves are blown
On shores that keep some touch of old delight,–
How welcome thy memory, and how bright,
To one who watches over leagues of stone
These chilly northern waters creep and moan
From weary morning unto weary night.
O Shade-form, lovelier than the living crowd,
So kind to votaries, yet thyself unvowed,
So free to human fancies, fancy-free,
My vagrant thought goes out to thee, to thee,
As wandering lonelier than the Poet's cloud,
I listen to the wash of this dull sea.

~~
Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855-1891)
from Sonnets of this Century, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Cracroft Lefroy biography

Who Made the Law? / Leslie Coulson

Who Made the Law?

Who made the Law that men should die in meadows?
Who spake the word that blood should splash in lanes?
Who gave it forth that gardens should be bone-yards?
Who spread the hills with flesh, and blood, and brains?

            Who made the Law?

Who made the Law that Death should stalk the village?
Who spake the word to kill among the sheaves,
Who gave it forth that death should lurk in hedgerows,
Who flung the dead among the fallen leaves?

            Who made the Law?

Those who return shall find that peace endures,
Find old things old, and know the things they knew,
Walk in the garden, slumber by the fireside,
Share the peace of dawn, and dream amid the dew – 

           Those who return.

Those who return shall till the ancient pastures,
Clean-hearted men shall guide the plough-horse reins,
Some shall grow apples and flowers in the valleys,
Some shall go courting in summer down the lanes –

            Those who return.

But who made the Law? the Trees shall whisper to him:
“See, see the blood – the splashes on our bark!”
Walking the meadows, he shall hear bones crackle,
And fleshless mouths shall gibber in silent lanes at dark.

            Who made the Law?

Who made the Law? At noon upon the hillside
 His ears shall hear a moan, his cheeks shall feel a breath,
And all along the valleys, past gardens, crofts, and homesteads,
            He who made the Law,

            He who made the Law,
He who made the Law shall walk along with Death.

~~
Leslie Coulson (1889-1916)
from From an Outpost, and other poems, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Leslie Coulson biography

To Himself in Autumn / Maurice Lesemann

To Himself in Autumn

from “Brushwood”

Take bitterness into your wailing;
Be like the rock, the hard gray stone;
See there is hunger in your ailing,
Walk scornfully and alone.
Walk scornfully on the fall-brown hills;
And maybe where the wind heaves
And scatters the littered poplar leaves,
Releasing tardy ones to the ground,
You will hear the faint authentic sound
And remember why the wind grieves.

~~
Maurice Lesemann (1899-1981)
from Poetry, April 1920

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

The World's Body / AE Reiff

The World's Body

The spiritual did not come first

but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

I lay in bed

trying to get my breath,

slept a long hour or two before dawn,

gradually I became aware my body had risen

slightly from its sleeping form. This felt good so

I didn't move, went in and out of sleep several times.

I could hear differently then, wheezing groans, coughs

and forced breaths and sounds like long sonorous moans.

I was either asleep in this raised state hearing my own flesh

cry out in pain, or awake hearing the world's sound,

loud early in night which had since calmed down.

It was like a train or a moan the world cried out,

a patient deep in pain this resonant thing

with a mellow groan and travail.

I heard it snoring

in some detail.

I conclude from

this a spiritual world exists,

that its spiritual body lacks sense

and that something is terribly wrong

if it makes these sounds like an old folks

home. Back in flesh I didn't hear it again.

~~

AE Reiff

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

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

AE Reiff biography

New chapbook from poet AE Reiff

Frequent contributor to The Penny Blog AE Reiff has a new book, The True Light that Lights, published by Parousia Reads in October as part of its Parousia Christian Poetry Chapbook series. Copies for Kindle can be ordered on Amazon here. 

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

Penny's Top 20 / October 2020

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in October 2020:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Where Once Poe Walked, H.P. Lovecraft

  4.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy

  5.  The Fragile Season, Yvor Winters
  6.  Autumn, W.H. Davies
  7.  Harvest, John Addington Symonds

  8.  Autumn Dream, Lilian Leveridge
  9.  By the Autumn Sea, Paul Hamilton Hayne
10.  Skating, William Wordsworth

11.  Falltime, Carl Sandburg 
12.  Autumn, Thomas Brerewood
13.  Autumn Communion, Gladys Cromwell
14.  The Key, George J. Dance
15.  Dandelions, George Sulzbach
16.  United Dames of America, Wallace Stevens
17.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

18.  Expecting Inspiration, George Sulzbach
19.  Puella Parvula, Wallace Stevens

20. July Midnight, Amy Lowell

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Where Once Poe Walked / H.P. Lovecraft

Where Once Poe Walked

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

~~
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
from Weird Tales, 1938

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

"Where Poe Once Walked" animation by Jim Clark 2014

H.P. Lovecraft bibliography

Autumn Communion / Gladys Cromwell

Autumn Communion

This autumn afternoon
My fancy need invent
No untried sacrament.
Man can still commune
With Beauty as of old:
The tree, the wind’s lyre,
The whirling dust, the fire —
In these my faith is told.

Beauty warms us all;
When horizons crimson burn,
We hold heaven’s cup in turn.
The dry leaves gleaming fall,
Crumbs of mystical bread;
My dole of Beauty I break,
Love to my lips I take,
And fear is quieted.

The symbols of old are made new:
I watch the reeds and the rushes,
The spruce trees dip their brushes
In the mountain’s dusky blue;
The sky is deep like a pool;
A fragrance the wind brings over
Is warm like hidden clover,
Though the wind itself is cool.

Across the air, between
The stems and the grey things,
Sunlight a trellis flings.
In quietude I lean:
I hear the lifting zephyr
Soft and shy and wild;
And I feel earth gentle and mild
Like the eyes of a velvet heifer.

Love scatters and love disperses.
Lightly the orchards dance
In a lovely radiance.
Down sloping terraces
They toss their mellow fruits.
The rhythmic wind is sowing,
Softly the floods are flowing
Between the twisted roots.

What Beauty need I own
When the symbol satisfies?
I follow services
Of tree and cloud and stone.
Color floods the world;
I am swayed by sympathy;
Love is a litany
In leaf and cloud unfurled.

~~
Gladys Cromwell (1885-1919)
from Poems, 1919

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

Gladys Cromwell biography

Autumn Dream / Lilian Leveridge

Autumn Dream

I know where the oaks and maples
Are setting the hills ablaze,
And the elms and the amber beeches
Are gilding the woodland ways.
I know where the scarlet sumachs
Are holding their torches high,
And the soft, blue smoke of the asters
Floats up to the rim of sky.

I know where the ripe nuts cluster —
Brown twins in a burly husk —
On the ridge where the crested bluejay
Wings home in the frosty dusk;
Where the killdeer calls in the starlight
His plaintive and weird good-night,
And the silence is stirred by the wing-beats
Of geese on their southward flight.
I know where a forest pathway
Winds on to the rim of the world,
Where smoke-wreaths hang in the twilight,
Like banners of love unfurled,
O’er an old grey house in the valley.
O see, in the autumn gloam,
Like beacons lit for a welcome,
The beckoning lights of home.

~~
Lilian Leveridge (1879-1953)
from The Blossom Trail, 1932

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Lilian Leveridge biography

Autumn / W.H. Davies

Autumn

Autumn grows old: he, like some simple one,
In Summer's castaway is strangely clad;
Such withered things the winds in frolic mad
Shake from his feeble hand and forehead wan.

Autumn is sighing for his early gold,
And in his tremble dropping his remains;
The brook talks more, as one bereft of brains,
Who singeth loud, delirious with the cold.

O now with drowsy June one hour to be!
Scarce waking strength to hear the hum of bees,
Or cattle lowing under shady trees,
Knee deep in waters loitering to the sea.

I would that drowsy June awhile were here,
The amorous South wind carrying all the vale –
Save that white lily true to star as pale,
Whose secret day-dream Phoebus burns to hear.

~~
W.H. Davies (1871-1940)
from The Soul's Destroyer, and other poems, 1905 

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

W.H. Davies biography

Autumn / Thomas Brerewood

Autumn

Tho' the seasons must alter, ah! yet let me find
What all must confess to be rare,
A female still cheerful, and faithful and kind,
The blessings of autumn to share.

Let one side of our cottage, a flourishing vine
Overspread with its branches, and shade;
Whose clusters appear more transparent and fine,
As its leaves are beginning to fade.

When the fruit makes the branches bend down with its load,
In our orchard surrounded with pales:
In a bed of clean straw let our apples be stow'd,
For a tart that in winter regales.

When the vapours that rise from the earth in the morn
Seem to hang on its surface like smoke,
'Till dispers'd by the sun that gilds over the corn,
Within doors let us prattle and joke.

But when we see clear all the hues of the leaves,
And at work in the fields are all hands,
Some in reaping the wheat, others binding the sheaves,
Let us carelesly stroll o'er the lands.

How pleasing the sight of the toiling they make,
To collect what kind Nature has sent!
Heaven grant we may not of their labour partake;

But, oh! give us their happy content.

And sometimes on a bank, under shade, by a brook,
Let us silently sit at our ease,
And there gaze on the stream, till the fish on the hook
Struggles hard to procure its release.

And now when the husbandman sings harvest home,
And the corn's all got into the house;
When the long wish'd for time of their meeting is come,
To frolic, and feast, and carouse:

When the leaves from the trees are begun to be shed,
And are leaving the branches all bare,
Either strew'd at the roots, shrivell'd, wither'd, and dead,
Or else blown to and fro in the air;

When the ways are so miry, that bogs they might seem,
And the axle-tree's ready to break,
While the waggoner whistles in stopping his team,
And then claps the poor jades on the neck;

In the morning let's follow the cry of the hounds,
Or the fearful young covey beset;
Which, tho' skulking in stubble and weeds on the grounds,
Are becoming a prey to the net.

Let's enjoy all the pleasure retirement affords,
Still amus'd with these innocent sports,
Nor once envy the pomp of fine ladies and lords,
With their grand entertainments in courts.

In the evening when lovers are leaning on stiles,
Deep engag'd in some amorous chat,
And 'tis very well known by his grin, and her smiles,
What they both have a mind to be at;

To our dwelling, tho' homely, well-pleas'd to repair,
Let our mutual endearments revive,
And let no single action, or look, but declare,
How contented and happy we live.

Should ideas arise that may ruffle the soul,
Let soft music the phantoms remove,
For 'tis harmony only has force to controul,
And unite all the passions in love.

With her eyes but half open, her cap all awry,
When the lass is preparing for bed;
And the sleepy dull clown, who sits nodding just by,
Sometimes rouzes and scratches his head.

In the night when 'tis cloudy and rainy, and dark,
And the labourers snore as they lie,
Not a noise to disturb us, unless a dog bark
In the farm, or the village hard by.

At the time of sweet rest, and of quiet like this,
Ere our eyes are clos'd up in their lids,
Let us welcome the season, and taste of that bliss,
Which the sunshine and daylight forbids.

~~ 

Thomas Brerewood (died 1748)
from A collection of the most esteemed pieces of poetry, 1767.

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Brerewood biography

Harvest / John Addington Symonds

The west is purple, and a golden globe,
Sphered with new-risen moonlight, hangs between
The skirts of evening's amethystine robe
And the round world bathed in the steady sheen.
There bending o'er a sickle bright and keen,
Rests from his long day's labour one whose eyes
Are fixed upon the large and luminous skies :

An earnest man he seems with yellow hair,
And yellow neath his scythe-sweep are the sheaves;
Much need hath he to waste the nights with care,
Lest waking he should hear from dripping eaves
The plash of rain, or hail among thin leaves,
Or melancholy wailings of a wind,
That lays broad field and furrow waste behind.

Much need hath he the live-long day to toil,
Sweeping the golden granaries of the plain,
Until he garner all the summer's spoil,
And store his gaping barns with heavy grain;
Then will he sleep, nor heed the plash of rain,
But with gay wassail and glad winter cheer
Steel a stout heart against the coming year.

~~
John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)
from New and Old: A volume of verse, 1880 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Addington Symonds biography

By the Autumn Sea / Paul Hamilton Hayne

By the Autumn Sea

Fair as the dawn of the fairest day,
Sad as the evening's tender gray,
By the latest lustre of sunset kissed,
That wavers and wanes through an amber mist,
There cometh a dream of the past to me,
On the desert sands, by the autumn sea.

All heaven is wrapped in a mystic veil,
And the face of the ocean is dim and pale,
And there rises a wind front the chill northwest,
That seemeth the wail of a soul's unrest,
As the twilight falls, and the vapors flee
Far over the wastes of the autumn sea.

A single ship through the gloaming glides
Upborne on the swell of the seaward tides;
And above the gleam of her topmost spar
Are the virgin eyes of the vesper-star
That shine with an angel's ruth on me,
A hopeless waif, by the autumn sea.

The wings of the ghostly beach-birds gleam
Through the shimmering surf, and the curlew's scream
Falls faintly shrill from the darkening height;
The first weird sigh on the lips of Night
Breathes low through the sedge and the blasted tree,
With a murmur of doom, by the autumn sea.

Oh, sky-enshadowed and yearning main,
Your gloom but deepens this human pain;
Those waves seem big with a nameless care,
That sky is a type of the heart's despair,
As I linger and muse by the sombre lea,
And the night shades close on the autumn sea.
~~
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886)
from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Hamilton Hayne biography

Falltime / Carl Sandburg

Falltime

from Redhaw Winds

Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,

Canada-thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes shining on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?

What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds, crying down on the north wind in September — acres of birds spotting the air going south?

Is there something finished? And some new beginning on the way?

~~
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
from Poetry, October 1918

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

Carl Sandburg biography

The Fragile Season / Yvor Winters

The Fragile Season

The scent of summer thins,
The air grows cold.

One walks alone
And chafes one’s hands.

The fainter aspen
Thin to air.
          The dawn
Is frost on roads.

This ending of the year
Is like the lacy ending
    of a last year’s leaf
Turned up in silence.

Air gives way to cold.

~~

Yvor Winters (1900-1968)

from Poetry, September 1922

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

Yvor Winters biography

Penny's Top 20 / September 2020

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2020:

  1.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  3.  September, Carlos Wilcox

  4.  Green, Paul Verlaine

  5.  Invitation to the Voyage, Charles Baudelaire
  6.  September, George Arnold
  7.  Summer to Autumn, Glenn Ward Dresbach

  8.  Summer and the Poet, William Howitt
  9.  In September, Edward Dowden
10.  Sunlight, AE Reiff

11.  Elegy in April and September, Wilfred Owen
12.  Dandelions, George Sulzbach
13.  The moon and stars are making love, George J. Dance
14.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
15.  The Last Rose of Summer, Thomas Moore
16.  Amarant, AE Reiff
17.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens

18.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons
19.  Angel Standing in the Sun, AE Reiff

20. Written in March, William Wordsworth

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

In September / Edward Dowden

In September 

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these 
Of mid September; through the still warm noon 
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune 
Than ever in the summer; from the trees 
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies, 
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon 
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon 
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas. 
Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god's lair 
A month hence, gazing on the last bright field. 
To sink o'er-drowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew 
Around my head and feet silently there, 
Till Spring's glad choir adown the valley pealed, 
And violets trembled in the morning dew. 

~~
Edward Dowden (1843-1913)
from Poems, 1876

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Dowden biography

September / George Arnold

 
September

        Sweet is the voice that calls
        From the babbling waterfalls
In meadows where the downy seeds are flying;
        And soft the breezes blow,
        And eddying come and go,
In faded gardens where the rose is dying.

        Among the stubbled corn
        The blithe quail pipes at morn,
The merry partridge drums in hidden places,
        And glittering insects gleam
        Above the reedy stream
Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces.

        At eve, cool shadows fall
        Across the garden wall,
And on the clustered grapes to purple turning,
        And pearly vapors lie
        Along the eastern sky,
Where the broad harvest-moon is redly burning.

        Ah, soon on field and hill
        The wind shall whistle chill,
And patriarch swallows call their flocks together
        To fly from frost and snow,
        And seek for lands where blow
The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather.

        The pollen-dusted bees
        Search for the hone-lees
That linger in the last flowers of September,
        While plaintive mourning doves
        Coo sadly to their loves
Of the dead summer they so well remember.

        The cricket chirps all day,
        "O fairest summer, stay!”
The squirrel eyes askance the chestnuts browning;
        The wild fowl fly afar
        Above the foamy bar,
And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning.

        Now comes a fragrant breeze
        Through the dark cedar-trees
And round about my temples fondly lingers,
        In gentle playfulness,
        Like to the soft caress
Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.

        Yet, though a sense of grief
        Comes with the falling leaf,
And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant,
        In all my autumn dreams
        A future summer gleams
Passing the fairest glories of the present!

~~
George Arnold (1831-1865)
from Drift: A seashore idyl; and other poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Arnold biography

Summer to Autumn / Glenn Ward Dresbach

Summer to Autumn 

My leaves of green you will turn to gold and crimson, 
My ripened fruits you will give their fullest hue, 
And my scattered birds will flock to you at parting — 
But all I give in turn will be taken from you. 

Your gold and crimson leaves will be banners fallen, 
Your flushed fruits will be scattered on the ground, 
And, at the last, the birds will hasten southward 
And leave you winds and many a lonely sound. 

We dream the dream and never reach completion 
Within ourselves, then pass in things we give . . . 
Always the void of winter wraps in silence 
Things that in spite of winter wait and live. 

~~
Glenn Ward Dresbach (1889-1968)
from In Colors of the West, 1922

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

Glenn Ward Dresbach biography

Summer and the Poet / William Howitt

Summer And The Poet

Poet:

Oh! golden, golden Summer,
What is it thou hast done?
Thou hast chased each vernal roamer
With thy fiercely burning sun.

Glad was the cuckoo's hail;
Where may we hear it now?
Thou hast driven the nightingale
From the waving hawthorn bough.

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river;
Thou hast made the small brook flee;
And the light gales faintly quiver
In the dark and shadowy tree.

Spring waked her tribes to bloom,
and on the green sward dance.
Thou hast smitten them to the tomb,
With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on,
Singing 'midst shocks of corn,
Thou hastenest to be gone,
As if joy might not be borne.

Summer:

And dost thou of me complain,
Thou, who, with dreamy eyes,
In the forest's moss hast lain,
Praising my silvery skies?

Thou, who didst deem divine
The shrill cicada's tune,
When the odors of the pine
Gushed through the woods at noon?

I have run my fervid race;
I have wrought my task once more;
I have fill'd each fruitful place
With a plenty that runs o'er.

There is treasure for the garner;
There is honey with the bee;
And, oh! thou thankless scorner,
There's a parting boon for thee.

Soon as, in misty sadness,
Sere Autumn yields his reign.
Winter, with stormy madness,
Shall chase thee from the plain.

Then shall these scenes Elysian
Bright in thy spirit burn;
And each summer-thought and vision
Be thine till I return.

~~ 
William Howitt (1792-1879)
from The Desolation of Eyam; the Emigrant: A tale of the American woods; and other poems, 1827.

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Howitt biography

Green / Paul Verlaine

Green

Here are the fruits, the flowers, the leaves, the wands,
Here my heart that beats only for your sighs.
Shatter them not with your snow-white hands,
Let my poor gifts be pleasing to your eyes.

I come to you, still covered with dew, you see,
Dew that the dawn wind froze here on my face.
Let my weariness lie down at your feet,
And dream of the dear moments that shed grace.

Let my head loll here on your young breast
Still ringing with your last kisses blessed,
Allow this departure of the great tempest,
And let me sleep now, a little, while you rest.

~~
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
translated by A.S. Kline
from Paul Verlaine: Selected poems in translation

[This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.]


Green

Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches
Et puis voici mon cœur qui ne bat que pour vous.
Ne le déchirez pas avec vos deux mains blanches
Et qu’à vos yeux si beaux l’humble présent soit doux.

J’arrive tout couvert encore de rosée
Que le vent du matin vient glacer à mon front.
Souffrez que ma fatigue à vos pieds reposée
Rêve des chers instants qui la délasseront.

Sur votre jeune sein laissez rouler ma tête
Toute sonore encore de vos derniers baisers;
Laissez-la s’apaiser de la bonne tempête,
Et que je dorme un peu puisque vous reposez.

~~
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
from Romances sans paroles, 1874

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Verlaine biography

Invitation to the Voyage - L'Invitation au Voyage /Charles Baudelaire

Invitation to the Voyage

Think, would it not be
Sweet to live with me
All alone, my child, my love? –
Sleep together, share
All things, in that fair
Country you remind me of?
Charming in the dawn
There, the half-withdrawn
Drenched, mysterious sun appears
In the curdled skies,
Treacherous as your eyes
Shining from behind their tears.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

We should have a room
Never out of bloom:
Tables polished by the palm
Of the vanished hours
Should reflect rare flowers
In that amber-scented calm;
Ceilings richly wrought,
Mirrors deep as thought,
Walls with eastern splendor hung,
All should speak apart
To the homesick heart
In its own dear native tongue.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

See, their voyage past,
To their moorings fast,
On the still canals asleep,
These big ships; to bring
You some trifling thing
They have braved the furious deep.
–Now the sun goes down,
Tinting dyke and town,
Field, canal, all things in sight,
Hyacinth and gold;
All that we behold
Slumbers in its ruddy light.

There, restraint and order bless
Luxury and voluptuousness.

~~
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) 
translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1882-1950)
from Flowers of Evil, 1936

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]


L'Invitation au Voyage

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l’ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l’âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
–Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

~~
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) 
from Les Fleur du Mal, 1857

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"L'Invitation au Voyage" animation by David Gautier

Charles Baudelaire biography
Edna St. Vincent Millay biography

Elegy in April and September / Wilfred Owen

Elegy in April and September

(jabbered among the trees)

  1

Hush, thrush! Hush, missel-thrush, I listen . . .
I heard the flush of footsteps through loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.

Still! daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,–
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.

Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook?– Yet search till grey sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.

Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,
For my eye withers, and his star wanes dim.


  2

Close, rose, and droop, heliotrope,
And shudder, hope! The shattering winter blows.
Drop, heliotrope, and close, rose . . .

Mourn, corn, and sigh, rye.
Men garner you, but youth's head lies forlorn.
Sigh, rye, and mourn, corn . . .

Brood, wood, and muse, yews,
The ways gods use we have not understood.
Muse, yews, and brood, wood . . .     

~~
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

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

Wilfred Owen biography

September / Carlos Wilcox

September

The sultry summer past, September comes,
Soft twilight of the slow-declining year.
All mildness, soothing loneliness, and peace;
The fading season ere the falling come,
More sober than the buxom, blooming May,
And therefore less the favourite of the world,
But dearest month of all to pensive minds,
Is now far spent; and the meridian sun,
Most sweetly smiling with attemper'd beams,
Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth.
Beneath its yellow lustre, groves and woods,
Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues,
While yet no wind has swept a leaf away,
Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight
Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged
Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues,
The yellow, red or purple of the trees
That singly, or in tufts, or forests thick
Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side
Of some high mount reflected far below,
With its bright colours, intermix'd with spots
Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad
To wander in the open fields, and hear,
E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past,
The lulling insects of the summer's night;
To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard,
A lonely bee long roving here and there
To find a single flower, but all in vain;
Then rising quick, and with a louder hum,
In widening circles round and round his head,
Straight by the listener flying clear away,
As if to bid the fields a last adieu;
To hear, within the woodland's sunny side
Late full of music, nothing save, perhaps,
The sound of nutshells, by the squirrel dropp'd
From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves.

~~
Carlos Wilcox (1794-1827)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Carlos Wilcox biography

Penny's Top 20 / August 2020

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in August 2020:

  1.  A Father to His Son, Carl Sandburg
  2.  Sunlight, AE Reiff

  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  4.  Late Summer (Alcaics), Edwin Arlington Robinson

  5.  Ode to May, Mary Darwall
  6.  Evening on Calais Beach, William Wordsworth
  7.  In August, Katharine Lee Bates
  8.  Card Game, Frank Prewitt
  9.  At the Seaside, Robert Louis Stevenson
10.  The moon and stars are making love, George J. Dance

11.  August, Annette Wynne
12.  Stanzas for Music, Lord Byron
13.  August, Mary Slade
14.  To the Summer Sun, Margaret Wilkinson
15.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
16.  Amarant, AE Reiff
17.  United Dames of America, Wallace Stevens

18.  Expecting Inspiration, George Sulzbach
19.  Crepuscule, E.E. Cummings

20. Dandelions, George Sulzbach

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

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