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Sunday, February 27, 2022

In February / John Addington Symonds


In February

The birds have been singing to-day
And saying: "The spring is near!
The sun is as warm as in May,
And the deep blue heavens are clear."

The little bird on the boughs
Of the sombre snow-laden pine
Thinks: "Where shall I build me my house,
And how shall I make it fine?

"For the season of snow is past;
The mild south wind is on high;
And the scent of the spring is cast
From his wing as he hurries by."

The little birds twitter and cheep
To their loves on the leafless larch:
But seven foot deep the snow-wreaths sleep,
And the year hath not worn to March.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Saturday, February 26, 2022

February / Jane G. Austin


February

I thought the world was cold in death;
    The flowers, the birds, all life was gone,
For January's bitter breath
    Had slain the bloom and hushed the song.

And still the earth is cold and white,
    And mead and forest yet are bare;
But there's a something in the light
    That says the germ of life is there.

Deep down within the frozen brook
    I hear a murmur, faint and sweet,
And lo! the ice breaks as I look,
    And living waters touch my feet.

Within the forest's leafless shade
    I hear a spring-bird's hopeful lay:
O life to frozen death betrayed
    Thy death shall end in life to-day.

And in my still heart's frozen cell
    The pulses struggle to be free;
While sweet the bird sings, who can tell
    But life may bloom again for thee!

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from
February: Around the year with the poets, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Jane G. Austin biography

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Hymn / Jack Kerouac


Hymn

And when you showed me the Brooklyn Bridge
in the morning,
Ah God,

And the people slipping on ice in the street,
twice,
twice,
two different people
came over, goin to work,
so earnest and tryful,
clutching their pitiful
morning Daily News
slip on the ice & fall
both inside 5 minutes
and I cried I cried

That’s when you taught me tears, Ah
God in the morning,
Ah Thee

And me leaning on the lampost wiping
eyes,
eyes,
nobody’s know I’d cried
or woulda cared anyway
but O I saw my father
and my grandfather’s mother
and the long lines of chairs
and tear-sitters and dead,
Ah me, I knew God You
had better plans than that

So whatever plan you have for me
Splitter of majesty
Make it short
brief
Make it snappy
bring me home to the Eternal Mother
today

~~
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), 1959
from Scattered Poems, 1970

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Jack Kerouac biography

Saturday, February 19, 2022

Birches / Robert Frost


Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust —
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows —
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from Mountain Interval, 1916

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


Monday, February 14, 2022

My True Love Hath My Heart / Philip Sidney


from ARCADIA

My True Love Hath My Heart


My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides.
His heart his wound receivèd from my sight;
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me on him his hurt did light,
So still methought in me his hurt did smart:
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

~~
Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
from English Lyric Poetry, 1500-1700, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]


Sunday, February 13, 2022

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments /
William Shakespeare


LV

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
    So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

~~
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from Shakespeare's Sonnets (American Book Co., 1905)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare, read by Sir Patrick Stewart

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Upon Julia's Clothes / Robert Herrick




Upon Julia's Clothes

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes. 

Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!

~~
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
from Hesperides, 1648


Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Jane Morris (The Blue Sik Dress), 1868
public domain - courtesy Wikimedia Commons

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]


Sunday, February 6, 2022

Februarie / Edmund Spenser (1)

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

Februarie. Ægloga Secunda.

ARGUMENT. This Æglogue is rather morall and generall then bent to any secrete or particular purpose. It specially conteyneth a discourse of old age, in the persone of Thenot, an olde shepheard, who, for his crookednesse and unlustinesse, is scorned of Cuddie, an unhappy heardmans boye. The matter very well accordeth with the season of the moneth, the yeare now drouping, and as it were, drawing to his last age. For as in this time of yeare, so then in our bodies, there is a dry and withering cold, which congealeth the crudled blood, and frieseth the wether-beaten flesh, with stormes of fortune and hoare frosts of care. To which purpose the olde man telleth a tale of the Oake and the Bryer, so lively and so feelingly, as, if the thing were set forth in some picture before our eyes, more plainly could not appeare.


CUDDIE. THENOT.

    Cud. Ah for pittie! wil rancke winters rage
These bitter blasts never ginne tasswage?
The kene cold blowes through my beaten hyde,
All as I were through the body gryde.
My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,
As doen high towers in an earthquake:
They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,
Perke as peacock: but nowe it avales.
 
     The. Lewdly complainest thou, laesie ladde,
Of winters wracke, for making thee sadde.
Must not the world wend in his commun course,
From good to badd, and from badde to worse,
From worse unto that is worst of all,
And then returne to his former fall?
Who will not suffer the stormy time,
Where will he live tyll the lusty prime?
Selfe have I worne out thrise threttie yeares,
Some in much joy, many in many teares;
Yet never complained of cold nor heate,
Of sommers flame, nor of winters threat;
Ne ever was to fortune foeman,
But gently tooke that ungently came:
And ever my flocke was my chiefe care;
Winter or sommer they mought well fare.

    Cud. No marveile, Thenot, if thou can beare
Cherefully the winters wrathfull cheare:
For age and winter accord full nie,
This chill, that cold, this crooked, that wrye;
And as the lowring wether lookes downe,
So semest thou like Good Fryday to frowne.
But my flowring youth is foe to frost,
My shippe unwont in stormes to be tost.

    The. The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine,
That, once seabeate, will to sea againe.
So loytring live you little heardgroomes,
Keeping your beastes in the budded broomes:
And when the shining sunne laugheth once,
You deemen the spring is come attonce.
Tho gynne you, fond flyes, the cold to scorne,
And, crowing in pypes made of greene corne,
You thinken to be lords of the yeare.
But eft, when ye count you freed from feare,
Comes the breme winter with chamfred browes,
Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes,
Drerily shooting his stormy darte,
Which cruddles the blood, and pricks the harte.
Then is your carelesse corage accoied,
Your carefull heards with cold bene annoied:
Then paye you the price of your surquedrie,
With weeping, and wayling, and misery.

    Cud. Ah, foolish old man! I scorne thy skill,
That wouldest me my springing youngth to spil.
I deeme thy braine emperished bee
Through rusty elde, that hath rotted thee:
Or sicker thy head veray tottie is,
So on thy corbe shoulder it leanes amisse.
Now thy selfe hast lost both lopp and topp,
Als my budding braunch thou wouldest cropp:
But were thy yeares greene, as now bene myne,
To other delights they would encline.
Tho wouldest thou learne to caroll of love,
And hery with hymnes thy lasses glove:
Tho wouldest thou pype of Phyllis prayse:
But Phyllis is myne for many dayes:
I wonne her with a gyrdle of gelt,
Embost with buegle about the belt:
Such an one shepeheards woulde make full faine,
Such an one would make thee younge againe.

    The. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boste;
All that is lent to love wyll be lost.

    Cud. Seest howe brag yond bullocke beares,
So smirke, so smoothe, his pricked eares?
His hornes bene as broade as rainebowe bent,
His dewelap as lythe as lasse of Kent.
See howe he venteth into the wynd.
Weenest of love is not his mynd?
Seemeth thy flocke thy counsell can,
So lustlesse bene they, so weake, so wan,
Clothed with cold, and hoary wyth frost.
Thy flocks father his corage hath lost:
Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags,
Like wailefull widdowes hangen their crags:
The rather lambes bene starved with cold,
All for their maister is lustlesse and old.

    The. Cuddie, I wote thou kenst little good,
So vainely tadvaunce thy headlessehood.
For youngth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose witt is weakenesse, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne penaunce,
And stoopegallaunt age, the hoste of greevaunce.
But shall I tel thee a tale of truth,
Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth,
Keeping his sheepe on the hils of Kent?
 
    Cud. To nought more, Thenot, my mind is bent,
Then to heare novells of his devise:
They bene so well thewed, and so wise,
What ever that good old man bespake.

    The. Many meete tales of youth did he make,
And some of love, and some of chevalrie:
But none fitter then this to applie.
Now listen a while, and hearken the end.

[continued in part 2 . . .]

Saturday, February 5, 2022

The Oak and the Briar / Edmund Spenser

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

from Februarie [. . . continued from part 1]

    [Thenot] There grewe an aged tree on the greene,
A goodly Oake sometime had it bene,
With armes full strong and largely displayd,
But of their leaves they were disarayde:
The bodie bigge, and mightely pight,
Throughly rooted, and of wonderous hight:
Whilome had bene the king of the field,
And mochell mast to the husband did yielde,
And with his nuts larded many swine.
But now the gray mosse marred his rine,
His bared boughes were beaten with stormes,
His toppe was bald, and wasted with wormes,
His honor decayed, his braunches sere.

    Hard by his side grewe a bragging Brere,
Which proudly thrust into thelement,
And seemed to threat the firmament.
Yt was embellisht with blossomes fayre,
And thereto aye wonned to repayre
The shepheards daughters, to gather flowres,
To peinct their girlonds with his colowres:
And in his small bushes used to shrowde
The sweete nightingale singing so lowde:
Which made this foolish Brere wexe so bold,
That on a time he cast him to scold
And snebbe the good Oake, for he was old.

    ‘Why standst there,’ quoth he, ‘thou brutish blocke?
Nor for fruict nor for shadowe serves thy stocke.
Seest how fresh my flowers bene spredde,
Dyed in lilly white and cremsin redde,
With leaves engrained in lusty greene,
Colours meete to clothe a mayden queene?
Thy wast bignes but combers the grownd,
And dirks the beauty of my blossomes round.
The mouldie mosse, which thee accloieth,
My sinamon smell too much annoieth.
Wherefore soone, I rede thee, hence remove,
Least thou the price of my displeasure prove.’
So spake this bold Brere with great disdaine:
Little him answered the Oake againe,
But yielded, with shame and greefe adawed,
That of a weede he was overawed.

    Yt chaunced after upon a day,
The husbandman selfe to come that way,
Of custome for to survewe his grownd,
And his trees of state in compasse rownd.
Him when the spitefull Brere had espyed,
Causlesse complained, and lowdly cryed
Unto his lord, stirring up sterne strife:

    ‘O my liege lord, the god of my life,
Pleaseth you ponder your suppliants plaint,
Caused of wrong, and cruell constraint,
Which I your poore vassall dayly endure:
And but your goodnes the same recure,
Am like for desperate doole to dye,
Through felonous force of mine enemie.’
 
    Greatly aghast with this piteous plea,
Him rested the goodman on the lea,
And badde the Brere in his plaint proceede.
With painted words tho gan this proude weede
(As most usen ambitious folke)
His colowred crime with craft to cloke.

    ‘Ah my soveraigne, lord of creatures all,
Thou placer of plants both humble and tall,
Was not I planted of thine owne hand,
To be the primrose of all thy land,
With flowring blossomes to furnish the prime,
And scarlot berries in sommer time?
How falls it then, that this faded Oake,
Whose bodie is sere, whose braunches broke,
Whose naked armes stretch unto the fyre,
Unto such tyrannie doth aspire;
Hindering with his shade my lovely light,
And robbing me of the swete sonnes sight?
So beate his old boughes my tender side,
That oft the bloud springeth from wounds wyde:
Untimely my flowres forced to fall,
That bene the honor of your coronall.
And oft he lets his cancker wormes light
Upon my braunches, to worke me more spight:
And oft his hoarie locks downe doth cast,
Where with my fresh flowretts bene defast.
For this, and many more such outrage,
Craving your goodlihead to aswage
The ranckorous rigour of his might,
Nought aske I, but onely to hold my right;
Submitting me to your good sufferance,
And praying to be garded from greevance.’

    To this the Oake cast him to replie
Well as he couth: but his enemie
Had kindled such coles of displeasure,
That the good man noulde stay his leasure,
But home him hasted with furious heate,
Encreasing his wrath with many a threate.
His harmefull hatchet he hent in hand,
(Alas, that it so ready should stand!)
And to the field alone he speedeth,
(Ay little helpe to harme there needeth.)
Anger nould let him speake to the tree,
Enaunter his rage mought cooled bee;
But to the roote bent his sturdy stroke,
And made many wounds in the wast Oake.
The axes edge did oft turne againe,
As halfe unwilling to cutte the graine:
Semed, the sencelesse yron dyd feare,
Or to wrong holy eld did forbeare.
For it had bene an auncient tree,
Sacred with many a mysteree,
And often crost with the priestes crewe,
And often halowed with holy water dewe.
But sike fancies weren foolerie,
And broughten this Oake to this miserye.
For nought mought they quitten him from decay:
For fiercely the goodman at him did laye.
The blocke oft groned under the blow,
And sighed to see his neare overthrow.
In fine, the steele had pierced his pitth:
Tho downe to the earth he fell forthwith:
His wonderous weight made the grounde to quake,
Thearth shronke under him, and seemed to shake.
There lyeth the Oake, pitied of none.

    Now stands the Brere like a lord alone,
Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleasaunce:
But all this glee had no continuaunce.
For eftsones winter gan to approache,
The blustring Boreas did encroche,
And beate upon the solitarie Brere:
For nowe no succoure was seene him nere.
Now gan he repent his pryde to late:
For naked left and disconsolate,
The byting frost nipt his stalke dead,
The watrie wette weighed downe his head,
And heaped snowe burdned him so sore,
That nowe upright he can stand no more:
And being downe, is trodde in the durt
Of cattell, and brouzed, and sorely hurt.
Such was thend of this ambitious Brere,
For scorning eld—

    [Cuddy]  Now I pray thee, shepheard, tel it not forth:
Here is a long tale, and little worth.
So longe have I listened to thy speche,
That graffed to the ground is my breche:
My hartblood is welnigh frorne, I feele,
And my galage growne fast to my heele:
But little ease of thy lewd tale I tasted.
Hye thee home, shepheard, the day is nigh wasted.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from The Shepheardes Calendar, 1579

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Penny's Top 20 / January 2022

           

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in January 2022:

  1.  June Dreams, in January, Sidney Lanier
  2.  White House, Anna Akhmatova
  3.  The Months, Sara Coleridge
  4.  Now dreary dawns the eastern light, A.E. Housman
  5.  Skating, William Wordsworth
  6.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  7.  When Snow Lies Deep, William Canton
  8.  Winter Twilight, Bliss Carman
  9.  The Winter Moonlight, Clark Ashton Smith
10.  Love-songs of the Open Road, Kendall Banning

11.  Januarie, Edmund Spenser
12.  A Midwinter Night's Eve, George J. Dance
13.  Winter: An elegy, Henry James Pye
14.  A January Morning, Archibald Lampman
15.  Whiteout, George J. Dance
16.  January, Rebecca Hey
17.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
18.  June Rain, Richard Aldington
19.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

Penny's Top 100 of 2021

  

The 100 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during 2021:


  1. June Rain, Richard Aldington
  2. Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3. Skating, William Wordsworth
  4. Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett
  5. God Smiles, Will Dockery
 
  6. The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
  7. Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach
  8. At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance
  9. Sonnet 1977, Will Dockery
10. The World's Body, AE Reiff

11. September Night, George J. Dance
12. Midnight Cry, R.K. Singh
13. Barley Feed, AE Reiff
14. Ritual Memory, Will Dockery
15. A Morning Song (for the first day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

16. To Tame the Kingdoms Let His Angels Run, AE Reiff
17. A Miracle, George J. Dance
18. January, Ruby Archer
19. February: An elegy, Thomas Chatterton
20. The Holly and the Ivy

21. Autumn Maples, Archibald Lampman
22. Christ Walks in This Infernal District Too, Malcolm Lowry
23. The Witches' Song, William Shakespeare
24. Christmas Bells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
25. Spring Wind in London, Katherine Mansfield

26. The moon and stars are making love, George J. Dance
27. A June Night, Emma Lazarus
28. Night Movement - New York, Carl Sandburg
29. Just Think!, Robert Service
30. The February Hush, Thomas Wentworth Higginson

31. April Snow, Pearl Andelson Sherry
32. Written in Winter, Catherine Manners
33. East Coker (II), T.S. Eliot
34. A Midwinter Night's Eve, George J. Dance
35. The Tent of Noon, Bliss Carman

36. Spring, George J. Dance
37. Lo, the Winter is Past, Song of Solomon
38. Craving for Spring, D.H. Lawrence
39. The Fairy in Winter, Walter de la Mere
40. September: A pastoral poem, William Perfect

41. If —, Rudyard Kipling
42. Marching Men, Marjorie Pickthall
43. March Thought, Hilda Conkling
44. The Sun Rising, John Donne
45. 4 autumn American Haiku, Jack Kerouac

46. Over hill, over dale, William Shakespeare
47. The Nightingales of Flanders, Grace Hazard Conkling
48. Winter is Past, Hamilton Aide
49. February: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
50. Once in royal David's city, Cecil Frances Alexander

51. Love like an April day beguiles, James Bland Burgess
52. The Winter Evening (excerpt), William Cowper 
53. Autumn Movement, Carl Sandburg
54. June Night, Sara Teasdale
55. Lovers' Lane, Thomas Moult

56. For You Mother, Hilda Conkling
57. Under the Holly Bough, Charles Mackay
58. On the Approach of Autumn, Amelia Opie
59. Winter, William Carlos Williams
60. Season of Change, George Sulzbach

61. At Lord's, Francis Thompson
62. Old and New Year Ditties, Christina Rosetti
63. At the Ball Game, William Carlos Williams
64. An October Evening, William Wilfred Campbell
65. A Day in Spring (XIV), Richard Westell

66. When I too long have looked upon your face, Edna St. Vincent Millay
67. False February, John Payne
68. June: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
69. The New Colossus, Emma Lazatus
70. Come merry Spring delight us, Mary Wroth

71. The Thrush in February, George Meredith
72. Late August, William Stanley Braithwaite
73. A September Morning in Nebraska, C.M. Barrow
74. Winter in the Country, Claude McKay
75. To Canada, James Alexander Tucker

76. East Coker (I), T.S. Eliot
77. Ephemeris, Babette Deutsch
78. The eager note on my door, Frank O'Hara
79. In May, Madison Cawein
80. Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

81. May Morning, Wilfred Rowland Childe
82. February, Michael Field
83. The Winds, William Carlos Williams
84. March, William Cullen Bryant
85. Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost

86. In October, Bliss Carman
87. A Snow-flake, Thomas Bayley Aldrich 
88. September, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
89. Francis Turner, Edgar Lee Masters
90. The Plow, Raymond Holden

91. Call Back Our Dead, Frederick George Scott
92. August: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
93. Advent of Today, William Carlos Williams
94. Christmas, 1860, Aubrey de Vere
95. The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

96. Easter Night, Alice Meynell
97. The New Cricket-Ground, Edward Cracroft Lefroy
98. Over the wood the sun burns, William Wilfred Campbell
99. October's Party, George Cooper
100. A Psalm of Spring, William Force Stead


Source: Blogger, "Stats"