The Witches' Song / William Shakespeare

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. 

    Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

    Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

    Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

~~
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from Macbeth, 1623

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Shakespeare biography

October: A pastoral poem / William Perfect

October: A pastoral poem

Of visage deep-wrinkled with care,
His temples a chaplet surround,
With acorns and oak-leaves his hair,
And starwort with saffron is bound.
The dam'sene her purple bestows,
A sash o'er his shoulder to throw;
With negligence easy it flows
Immingled with gifts from the sloe.

His right hand the scorpion suspends,
High-lifted it writhes in the air;
From his left a rush basket impends,
Replete with the walnut and pear:
His franchise it is to invoke
The fog of blue mist on the hill,
Thick rising like columns of smoke,
Exhal'd from the vale-loving rill.

He comes — shall my muse wake the reed?
Ah where are the notes of the bough!
When whilom the beech on the mead
Spread shelter for Phillida's cow:
When Philomel's pastoral lay
Trill'd loudly her queruolous strain,
The kids with the lambkins in play,
Skipp'd frolicksome over the plain.

My muse cannot sing in the grove
And think of past transports serene,
When Zephyrs invited to love,
And Delia was extacy's queen:
When near the smooth lapse of the brook
I sought thro' the whispering vale,
The roses which painting her crook,
Compar'd to her blushes were pale.

No more to the brook must I stray,
From the whispering valley exil'd;
No longer these Zephyrs shall play
Round Delia that linger'd and smil'd:
Farewell to the white-flaunting hop,
The gardens that glow'd to the sight;
Yet the blooming arbutus I'll crop,
Present to the fair with delight.

I'll gather autumnal perfume,
The suckle shall yield her last sweet;
Convulvus offers her bloom,
To decorate Delia's retreat;
The pheasant I'd bear to my maid,
But shrink from the present with fear,
Lest into fresh sorrow betray'd,
Her eyes are suffus'd with a tear.

Pomona, in straw-colour'd vest,
With marigolds stuck in her hair,
The gossamer gauzing her breast,
Her cheeks ruddy beauty declare;
October she met in the close,
He courted her presence and shape;
Vertumnus in jealousy rose,
And thought 'twas the god of the grape.

But Bacchus I see in the vale,
The Satyrs his orgies sustain;
My path from his feasts I curtail,
Reject his incontinent train;
The fig and the vine let me bring,
Great Bacchus, to honour thy sway,
The games of the vintage to sing,
Give vigour, ye nine, to my lay.

But who is this envoy of woes,
That wakes with Aurora's first ray,
His song of complaint to disclose,
From the vine or the jessamine spray?
He sings desolation to come;
Sharp winter predicts from aloof;
My shed, social bird, be thy home,
Securely perch under my roof.

Dost grieve that the summer is past?
The trees their green ornaments shed?
That omens of winter in haste
Approaching press over thy head?
Prolong, gentle red-breast, thy strains
Contagions shall usher thy moan;
My sympathy share in thy pains,
Thy sorrows, poor bird, be my own.

When mid-day is silent around,
The gloom of ag'd cypress I seek,
The turf is with osiers fresh bound,
The cause my dejection must speak:
Lycander, my once valued friend,
Ah, muse! much indebted, essays,
In sadness from friendship to send
What elegy weeps into lays.

The virtues all pinioned in thee,
Thy solitude's sacred retreat,
Made innocence grandeur to thee,
Whose soul was serenity's seat:
False pageantry ne'er could annoy;
The gems of content were thy own;
Mild competence furnish'd a joy
Denied to the pride of a throne.

Obscurity mark'd his estate;
Yet temperate health was his lot;
He scorn'd the least wish to be great,
Whose pomp was the peace of a cot;
How fervent, sincere flow'd the strain,
With simple morality fraught;
Devoutly religious, tho' plain,
He spoke to the God of his thought.

Ambition unknown to his breast,
Unknown every clamourous strife,
The venom corrosive of rest,
That fury that harrows up life:
Yet pensively thoughtful he grew,
The mate of his youth was no more;
The friend of his age, ever true,
His feelings intensely deplore.

I saw him one day 'neath the oak
That measures a shade of extent,
His silence his misery spoke,
Deep sorrow to solitude lent:
His brow was as dark as the shade;
He sought from the path of the dell,
Nor long did he grieve in the glade,
But languishing droop'd 'till he fell.

~~
William Perfect (1737-1809)
from Sentimental Magazine, October 1774

William Perfect biography

Maple Leaves / Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Maple Leaves

October turned my maple's leaves to gold;
The most are gone now; here and there one lingers:
Soon these will slip from out the twigs' weak hold,
Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.

~~
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907)
from Poems, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

Maasaak, Last leaves on Norway Maple in autumn, 2014. CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Bailey Aldrich biography

In October / Bliss Carman

In October

Now come the rosy dogwoods,
    The golden tulip-tree,
And the scarlet yellow maple,
    To make a day for me.

The ash-trees on the ridges,
    The alders in the swamp,
Put on their red and purple
    To join the autumn pomp.

The woodbine hangs her crimson
    Along the pasture wall,
And all the bannered sumacs
    Have heard the frosty call.

Who then so dead to valor
    As not to raise a cheer,
When all the woods are marching
    In triumph of the year?

~~
Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
from Later Poems, 1926

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

Bliss Carman biography

Autumn Maples / Archibald Lampman

Autumn Maples

The thoughts of all the maples who shall name,
    When the sad landscape turns to cold and grey?
    Yet some for very ruth and sheer dismay,
Hearing the northwind pipe the winter's name,
Have fired the hills with beaconing clouds of flame;
    And some with softer woe that day by day,
    So sweet and brief, should go the westward way,
Have yearned upon the sunset with such shame,
    That all their cheeks have turned to tremulous rose;
        Others for wrath have turned a rusty red,
        And some that knew not either grief or dread,
    Ere the old year should find its iron close,
Have gathered down the sun's last smiles acold,
Deep, deep, into their luminous hearts of gold.

~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)
from Among the Millet, and other poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

October's Party / George Cooper

October's Party

October gave a party;
    The leaves by hundreds came —
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
    And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
    And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
    Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
    The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
    In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
    And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
    New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
    At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
    And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
    They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
    In jolly "hands around."

~~
George Cooper (1840-1927)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Cooper biography

A Trivial Day in Early Autumn / Pearl Andelson Sherry

A Trivial Day in Early Autumn

from Worker in Marble

A China lily cup
Upon a pool
Lifts up
Its bowl.

Over the pale sky
Frail clouds;
A butterfly
About the garden flowers.

Subtle
The wind
Among
The falling leaves.

~~
Pearl Andelson Sherry (1899-1966)
from Poetry, December 1922

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

Pearl Andelson Sherry biography

Advent of Today / William Carlos Williams

Advent of Today

South wind
striking in — torn
spume — trees

inverted over trees
scudding low
a sea become winged

bringing today
out of yesterday
in bursts of rain —

a darkened presence
above
detail of October grasses

veiled at once
in a downpour —
conflicting rattle of

the rain against
the storm’s slow majesty —
leaves

rising
instead of falling
the sun

coming and going
toward the
middle parts of the sky

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
from Complete Collected Poems, 1906-1938, 1938

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

William Carlos Williams biography

An October Evening / William Wilfred Campbell

An October Evening

The woods are haggard and lonely,
    The skies are hooded for snow,
The moon is cold in Heaven,
    And the grasses are sere below.

The bearded swamps are breathing
    A mist from meres afar,
And grimly the Great Bear circles
    Under the pale Pole Star.

There is never a voice in Heaven,
    Nor ever a sound on earth,
Where the spectres of winter are rising
    Over the night's wan girth.

There is slumber and death in the silence,
    There is hate in the winds so keen;
And the flash of the north's great sword-blade
    Circles its cruel sheen.

The world grows agèd and wintry,
    Love's face peakèd and white;
And death is kind to the tired ones
    Who sleep in the north to-night.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell
from Poems, 1905

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

William Wilfred Campbell biography

To a Moth That Drinketh of the Ripe October / Emily Pfeiffer

To a Moth That Drinketh of the Ripe October

    I

A moth belated, sun and zephyrkist,
Trembling about a pale arbutus bell,
Probing to wildering depths its honey’d cell,—
A noonday thief, a downy sensualist!
Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath,
Strikest ambrosia from the cool-cupp’d flowers,
And flutterest through the soft, uncounted hours,
To drop at last in unawaited death;
’T is something to be glad! and those fine thrills,
Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile
Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills,
If ill have any part in thee; erewhile
May the pent force—thy bounded life, set free,
Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy.


    II

With what fine organs art thou dower’d, frail elf!
Thy harp is pitch’d too high for dull annoy,
Thy life a love-feast, and a silent joy,
As mute and rapt as Passion’s silent self.
I turn from thee, and see the swallow sweep
Like a wing’d will, and the keen-scented hound
That snuffs with rapture at the tainted ground,—
All things that freely course, that swim or leap,—
Then, hearing glad voiced creatures men call dumb,
I feel my heart, oft sinking ’neath the weight
Of Nature’s sorrow, lighten at the sum
Of Nature’s joy; its half unfolded fate
Breathes hope — for all but those beneath the ban
Of the inquisitor and tyrant, man.

~~
Emily Pfeiffer (1827-1890)
from Sonnets and Songs, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Pfeiffer biography

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October:

Mnemosyne, by Trumbull Stickney

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/10/mnemosyne.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2021

       

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2021:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

  4.  To Tame the Kingdoms Let His Angels Run, AE Reiff

  5.  September Night, George J. Dance
  6.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
  7.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  8.  On the Approach of Autumn, Amelia Opie
  9.  4 autumn American Haiku, Jack Kerouac
10.  September, Ella Wheeler Wilcox

11.  September: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
12.  East Coker (I), T.S. Eliot
13.  Lines (You go to the woods), Carolyn Sturgis Tappan
14.  A September Morning in Nebraska, C.M. Barrow
15.  Christ Walks in this Infernal District Too, Malcolm Lowry
16.  Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens
17.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

18.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons
19.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

20. A June Night, Emma Lazarus

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