Penny's Poetry Blog: November 2021

Sunday, November 28, 2021

The Snowing of the Pines /
Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The Snowing of the Pines

Softer than silence, stiller than still air
Float down from high pine-boughs the slender leaves.
The forest floor its annual boon receives
That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.
Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weaves
Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves
Or those strange blossoms the witch-hazels wear.
Athwart long aisles the sunbeams pierce their way;
High up, the crows are gathering for the night;
The delicate needles fill the air; the jay
Takes through their golden mist his radiant flight;
They fall and fall, till at November’s close
The snow-flakes drop as lightly — snows on snows.

~~
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)
from The World's Best Poetry, 1904

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Wentworth Higginson biography

Saturday, November 27, 2021

November: A pastoral poem / William Perfect

November: A pastoral poem

Ah! whither, bright god of the spring,
Are thy rays nature-chearing withdrawn?
The warblers that stretch the gay wing,
No longer enliven the lawn.
Ye breezes of softness, ah where
Are your zephyrs of fragrance exil'd?
No longer you sport through the air,
On the bosom of aether so mild.

Ye streams that ran purling along,
From your banks your own Flora is fled;
And Philomel issues no song
Thro' the verdure that cover'd her head.
The bleating of lambs from the fold,
From the valley no longer ascends;
No tale of soft passion is told
Where the beech its broad branches extends.

Ah! where is the couch of green moss,
Which I with my Delia have found,
When with pleasure we wander'd across
The daisy-embroidered ground.
No more to the close-twisted bow'r,
With the fair one delighted I run?
In coolness to pass the fond hour,
Eluding the heat of the sun.

For nature so pensive is grown,
Her tears steep in dew all the plain,
With grief I attend to her moan,
But my sorrows attend her in vain.
November, the tomb of the year,
Usurps his tyrannical stand,
His glooms in succession appear,
In succession stalk over the land.

But where does my Celadon rove,
The friend of my undisguis'd breast?
And where is that empress of love,
My Delia, with innocence bless'd?
Can November to Celadon bring
The horrors which friendship annoy?
In that bosom forgetfulness spring,
Where friendship has treasur'd each joy?

Can Delia, whose heart is the seat
Where love ever faithful is stor'd,
Too cruel desert my retreat,
By winter's rough visit explor'd?
No, Celadon, no, to complain
Of the virtues enthron'd in your heart,
Would pierce friendship's side with a pain,

'Twere ungrateful in me to impart;

For friendship, most pure in her form,
In lustre congenial is thine,
Unruffled, unhurt by the storm,
Tho' the troubles of life shall combine.
Let winter attempt to destroy
The comforts which friendship can bring,
Come, Celadon, come, we'll enjoy,
And soften November to Spring.

Nor let me of Delia complain,
Tho' the trees all their verdure resign,
Tho' the north bids his tyrannies reign,
And Phoebus for clouds cannot shine.
She comes — in her presence is love,
Her eyes are the heralds of grace;
November no longer shall prove
Of nature the squalid disgrace.

~~
William Perfect (1737-1809)
from Sentimental Magazine, November 1773

William Perfect biography

Sunday, November 21, 2021

East Coker / T.S. Eliot (II)

                 II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

       That was a way of putting it — not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

       The houses are all gone under the sea.

       The dancers are all gone under the hill.

~~
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
from East Coker, 1940

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

T.S. Eliot biography

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Ritual Memory / Will Dockery

Ritual Memory

If these words of love
fell into bad timing
put them away
like a flower in a book.

This place has become a valley
all is lost here in the rain
but I am older and wiser
and understand the tricks of life

how sadness and soft light
are a natural form of life
as is cold rain
in the later part of November.

I feel so old yet not wise
foolhardy as the day I was born.
Put me away.
I make a better memory.

I will not rip it out of here.

It is an honest poem

so I will not edit it.
Why would I even want to do that?

~~
Will Dockery, 1997
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

Sunday, November 14, 2021

The eager note on my door ... / Frank O'Hara

Poem

The eager note on my door said “Call me,
call when you get in!” so I quickly threw
a few tangerines into my overnight bag,
straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and

headed straight for the door. It was autumn
by the time I got around the corner, oh all
unwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, but
the leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!

Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this late
and the hall door open; still up at this hour, a
champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!
for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.

~~
Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
from Meditations in an Emergency, 1957

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Frank O'Hara biography

Saturday, November 13, 2021

The Nightingales of Flanders /
Grace Hazard Conkling

The Nightingales of Flanders

"Le rossignol n'est pas mobilisé."
– A French soldier

The nightingales of Flanders,
   They had not gone to war;
A soldier heard them singing
   Where they had sung before.

The earth was torn and quaking,
   The sky about to fall;
The nightingales of Flanders,
   They minded not at all.

At intervals we heard them
   Between the guns, he said,
Making a thrilling music
   Above the listening dead.

Of woodland and of orchard
   And roadside tree bereft,
The nightingales of Flanders
   Were singing, France is left!

~~
Grace Hazard Conkling (1878-1958)
from Wilderness Songs, 1920

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

Grace Hazard Conkling biography

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Marching Men / Marjorie Pickthall

Marching Men

Under the level winter sky
I saw a thousand Christs go by.
They sang an idle song and free
As they went up to calvary.

Careless of eye and coarse of lip,
They marched in holiest fellowship.
That heaven might heal the world, they gave
Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave.

With souls unpurged and steadfast breath
They supped the sacrament of death.
And for each one, far off, apart,
Seven swords have rent a woman's heart.

~~
Marjorie L.C. Pickthall
from The Wood Carver's Wife, and later poems, 1922

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

Marjorie Pickthall biography

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Autumn Movement / Carl Sandburg

Autumn Movement

from Redhaw Winds

I cried over beautiful things, knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

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

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

Carl Sandburg biography

Saturday, November 6, 2021

Nothing Gold Can Stay / Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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

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