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Sunday, May 29, 2022

It Is Not Always May / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


It Is Not Always May

No hay pájaros en los nidos de antaño. 
                                – Spanish proverb

The sun is bright,the air is clear,
    The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
    The blue-bird prophesying Spring.

So blue yon winding river flows,
    It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where waiting till the west wind blows,
    The freighted clouds at anchor lie.

All things are new; the buds, the leaves,
    That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves;
    There are no birds in last year's nest!

All things rejoice in youth and love,
    The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
    The melting tenderness of night.

Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme,
    Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
    For O! it is not always May!

Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth,
    To some good angel leave the rest;
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
    There are no birds in last year's nest!

~~
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
from Ballads, and other poems, 1842

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Saturday, May 28, 2022

'Tis May Now in New England / Bliss Carman


'Tis May Now in New England

'Tis May now in New England
And through the open door
I see the creamy breakers,
I hear the hollow roar.

Back to the golden marshes
Comes summer at full tide,
But not the golden comrade
Who was the summer's pride.

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

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

Bob Galindo, Malone spring marshes, May 2013. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Ode, Composed on May Morning /
William Wordsworth


Ode, Composed on May Morning

While from the purpling east departs
    The star that led the dawn,
Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,
    For May is on the lawn.
A quickening hope, a freshening glee,
    Foreran the expected Power,
Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree,
    Shakes off that pearly shower.

All Nature welcomes Her whose sway
    Tempers the year's extremes;
Who scattereth lustres o'er noon-day,
    Like morning's dewy gleams;
While mellow warble, sprightly trill,
    The tremulous heart excite;
And hums the balmy air to still
    The balance of delight.

Time was, blest Power! when youth and maids
    At peep of dawn would rise,
And wander forth, in forest glades
    Thy birth to solemnize.
Though mute the song – to grace the rite
    Untouched the hawthorn bough,
Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight;
    Man changes, but not Thou!

Thy feathered Lieges bill and wings
    In love's disport employ;
Warmed by thy influence, creeping things
    Awake to silent joy:
Queen art thou still for each gay plant
    Where the slim wild deer roves;
And served in depths where fishes haunt
    Their own mysterious groves.

Cloud-piercing peak, and trackless heath,
    Instinctive homage pay;
Nor wants the dim-lit cave a wreath
    To honor thee, sweet May!
Where cities fanned by thy brisk airs
    Behold a smokeless sky,
Their puniest flower-pot-nursling dares
    To open a bright eye.

And if, on this thy natal morn,
    The pole, from which thy name
Hath not departed, stands forlorn
    Of song and dance and game;
Still from the village-green a vow
    Aspires to thee addrest,
Wherever peace is on the brow,
    Or love within the breast.

Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach
    The soul to love the more;
Hearts also shall thy lessons reach
    That never loved before.
Stript is the haughty one of pride,
    The bashful freed from fear,
While rising, like the ocean-tide,
    In flow the joyous year.

Hush, feeble lyre! weak words refuse
    The service to prolong!
To yon exulting thrush the Muse
    Entrusts the imperfect song;
His voice shall chant, in accents clear,
    Throughout the live-long day,
Till the first silver star appear,
    The sovereignty of May.

~~
William Wordsworth (1770-1850),1826
from Yarrow Revisited and other poems, 1835

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Afternoon on a Hill / Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Afternoon on a Hill


I will be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
    With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
    And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
    Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
    And then start down!

~~
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from 
Renascence, and other poems, 1912

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

Sunday, May 15, 2022

May Night / Sara Teasdale


May Night

The spring is fresh and fearless
    And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
    The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
    I catch my breath and sing –
My heart is fresh and fearless
    And over-brimmed with spring.

~~
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
from Rivers to the Sea, 1915

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


Saturday, May 14, 2022

May / Rebecca Hey


May

The clouds "have wept their fill" the whole night long,
And what a change is wrought! But yesterday,
We look'd around, and scarce could deem that May,
The poet's theme,— the month of flowers and song,—
Could do her own sweet lineaments such wrong
As to frown on us like a very shrew:
To-day, we feel what poets sing is true;
Like them, we hail her reign, and wish it long.
See, how each budding spray, each floweret fair
Retains the liquid treasure! how the trees,
Lest summer should o'ertake them unaware,
Haste to unfold their leaflets to the breeze;
While in the orchard every moss-grown stem,
And sapling shoot, a thousand blossoms gem!

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Rebecca Hey biography

Sunday, May 8, 2022

My Mother / Ann Taylor


My Mother

Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hush’d me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
                                        My Mother.

When sleep forsook my open eye,
Who was it sung sweet hushaby,
And rock’d me that I should not cry?
                                        My Mother.

Who sat and watched my infant head,
When sleeping in my cradle bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed?
                                        My Mother.

When pain and sickness made me cry,
Who gazed upon my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
                                        My Mother.

Who dress’d my doll in clothes so gay,
And taught me pretty how to play.
And minded all I had to say?
                                        My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
                                        My Mother.
 
Who taught my infant lips to pray,
And love God’s holy book and day,
And walk in Wisdom’s pleasant way?
                                        My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who was so very kind to me?
                                        My Mother.

Ah, no! the thought I cannot bear;
And if God please my life to spare,
I hope I shall reward thy care,
                                        My Mother.

When thou art feeble, old, and gray,
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I will soothe thy pains away,
                                        My Mother.

And when I see thee hang thy head,
‘Twill be my turn to watch thy bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed,
                                        My Mother.

For God who lives above the skies
Would look with vengeance in His eyes,
If I should ever dare despise
                                        My Mother.

Illustration by Walter Crane (1845-1915). Public domain.
~~
Ann Taylor (1782-1866)
from
 Original Poems for Infant Minds1834

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Saturday, May 7, 2022

Maye / Edmund Spenser

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579: 

Maye. Ægloga Quinta.

ARGUMENT IN this fift Æglogue, under the persons of two shepheards, Piers and Palinodie, be represented two formes of pastoures or ministers, or the Protestant and the Catholique: whose chiefe talke standeth in reasoning whether the life of the one must be like the other. With whom having shewed that it is daungerous to mainteine any felowship, or give too much credit to their colourable and feyned goodwill, he telleth him a tale of the Foxe, that by such a counterpoynt of craftines deceived and devoured the credulous Kidde.


PALINODE. PIERS.

    Pal. Is not thilke the mery moneth of May,
When love lads masken in fresh aray?
How falles it then, we no merrier bene,
Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene?
Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde
For thilke same season, when all is yeladd
With pleasaunce: the grownd with grasse, the wods
With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds.
Yougthes folke now flocken in every where,
To gather may buskets and smelling brere:
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirke pillours eare day light,
With hawthorne buds, and swete eglantine,
And girlonds of roses and sopps in wine.
Such merimake holy saints doth queme,
But we here sytten as drownd in a dreme.

    Piers. For younkers, Palinode, such follies fitte,
But we tway bene men of elder witt.

    Pal. Sicker, this morrowe, ne lenger agoe,
I sawe a shole of shepeheardes outgoe
With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere:
Before them yode a lusty tabrere,
That to the many a horne pype playd,
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.
To see those folkes make such jouysaunce,
Made my heart after the pype to daunce.
Tho to the greene wood they speeden hem all,
To fetchen home May with their musicall:
And home they bringen in a royall throne,
Crowned as king; and his queene attone
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend
A fayre flocke of faeries, and a fresh bend
Of lovely nymphs. O that I were there,
To helpen the ladyes their maybush beare!
Ah, Piers! bene not thy teeth on edge, to thinke
How great sport they gaynen with little swinck?

Piers. Perdie, so farre am I from envie,
That their fondnesse inly I pitie.
Those faytours little regarden their charge,
While they, letting their sheepe runne at large,
Passen their time, that should be sparely spent,
In lustihede and wanton meryment.
Thilke same bene shepeheardes for the Devils stedde,
That playen while their flockes be unfedde.
Well is it seene, theyr sheepe bene not their owne,
That letten them runne at randon alone.
But they bene hyred for little pay
Of other, that caren as little as they
What fallen the flocke, so they han the fleece,
And get all the gayne, paying but a peece,
I muse what account both these will make,
The one for the hire which he doth take,
And thother for leaving his lords taske,
When great Pan account of shepeherdes shall aske.

    Pal. Sicker; now I see thou speakest of spight,
All for thou lackest somedele their delight.
I (as I am) had rather be envied,
All were it of my foe, then fonly pitied:
And yet, if neede were, pitied would be,
Rather then other should scorne at me:
For pittied is mishappe that nas remedie,
But scorned bene dedes of fond foolerie.
What shoulden shepheards other things tend,
Then, sith their God his good does them send,
Reapen the fruite thereof, that is pleasure,
The while they here liven, at ease and leasure?
For when they bene dead, their good is ygoe,
They sleepen in rest, well as other moe.
Tho with them wends what they spent in cost,
But what they left behind them is lost.
Good is no good, but if it be spend:
God giveth good for none other end.
 
    Piers. Ah, Palinodie! thou art a worldes child:
Who touches pitch mought needes be defilde.
But shepheards (as Algrind used to say)
Mought not live ylike as men of the laye:
With them it sits to care for their heire,
Enaunter their heritage doe impaire:
They must provide for meanes of maintenaunce,
And to continue their wont countenaunce.
But shepheard must walke another way,
Sike worldly sovenance he must foresay.
The sonne of his loines why should he regard
To leave enriched with that he hath spard?
Should not thilke God that gave him that good
Eke cherish his child, if in his wayes he stood?
For if he mislive in leudnes and lust,
Little bootes all the welth and the trust
That his father left by inheritaunce:
All will be soone wasted with misgovernaunce.
But through this, and other their miscreaunce,
They maken many a wrong chevisaunce,
Heaping up waves of welth and woe,
The floddes whereof shall them overflowe.
Sike mens follie I cannot compare
Better then to the apes folish care,
That is so enamoured of her young one,
(And yet, God wote, such cause hath she none)
That with her hard hold, and straight embracing,
She stoppeth the breath of her youngling.
So often times, when as good is meant,
Evil ensueth of wrong entent.
 
   The time was once, and may againe retorne,
(For ought may happen, that hath bene beforne)
When shepeheards had none inheritaunce,
Ne of land, nor fee in sufferaunce,
But what might arise of the bare sheepe,
(Were it more or lesse) which they did keepe.
Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe:
Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe.
For Pan himselfe was their inheritaunce,
And little them served for their mayntenaunce.
The shepheards God so wel them guided,
That of nought they were unprovided,
Butter enough, honye, milke, and whay,
And their flockes fleeces, them to araye.
But tract of time, and long prosperitie,
(That nource of vice, this of insolencie,)
Lulled the shepheards in such securitie,
That not content with loyall obeysaunce,
Some gan to gape for greedie governaunce,
And match them selfe with mighty potentates,
Lovers of lordship and troublers of states.
Tho gan shepheards swaines to looke a loft,
And leave to live hard, and learne to ligge soft:
Tho, under colour of shepeheards, somewhile
There crept in wolves, ful of fraude and guile,
That often devoured their owne sheepe,
And often the shepheards that did hem keepe.
This was the first sourse of shepheards sorowe,
That now nill be quitt with baile nor borrowe.
 
    Pal. Three thinges to beare bene very burdenous,
But the fourth to forbeare is outragious:
Wemen that of loves longing once lust,
Hardly forbearen, but have it they must:
So when choler is inflamed with rage,
Wanting revenge, is hard to asswage:
And who can counsell a thristie soule,
With patience to forbeare the offred bowle?
But of all burdens that a man can beare,
Moste is, a fooles talke to beare and to heare.
I wene the geaunt has not such a weight,
That beares on his shoulders the heavens height.
Thou findest faulte where nys to be found,
And buildest strong warke upon a weake ground:
Thou raylest on right withouten reason,
And blamest hem much, for small encheason.
How shoulden shepheardes live, if not so?
What! should they pynen in payne and woe?
Nay saye I thereto, by my deare borrowe,
If I may rest, I nill live in sorrowe.
 
    Sorrowe ne neede be hastened on:
For he will come, without calling, anone.
While times enduren of tranquillitie,
Usen we freely our felicitie.
For when approchen the stormie stowres,
We mought with our shoulders beare of the sharpe showres.
And sooth to sayne, nought seemeth sike strife,
That shepheardes so witen ech others life,
And layen her faults the world beforne,
The while their foes done eache of hem scorne.
Let none mislike of that may not be mended:
So conteck soone by concord mought be ended.
 
    Piers. Shepheard, I list none accordaunce make
With shepheard that does the right way forsake.
And of the twaine, if choice were to me,
Had lever my foe then my freend he be.
For what concord han light and darke sam?
Or what peace has the lion with the lambe?
Such faitors, when their false harts bene hidde,
Will doe as did the Foxe by the Kidde.
 
    Pal. Now Piers, of felowship, tell us that saying:
For the ladde can keepe both our flocks from straying.
 
    Piers. Thilke same Kidde (as I can well devise)
Was too very foolish and unwise.
For on a tyme in sommer season,
The Gate her dame, that had good reason,
Yode forth abroade unto the greene wood,
To brouze, or play, or what shee thought good.
But, for she had a motherly care
Of her young sonne, and wit to beware,
Shee set her youngling before her knee,
That was both fresh and lovely to see,
And full of favour as kidde mought be.
His vellet head began to shoote out,
And his wreathed horns gan newly sprout;
The blossomes of lust to bud did beginne,
And spring forth ranckly under his chinne.
‘My sonne,’ quoth she, (and with that gan weepe;
For carefull thoughts in her heart did creepe)
‘God blesse thee, poore orphane, as he mought me,
And send thee joy of thy jollitee.
Thy father,’ (that word she spake with payne;
For a sigh had nigh rent her heart in twaine)
‘Thy father, had he lived this day,
To see the braunche of his body displaie,
How would he have joyed at this sweete sight!
But ah! false Fortune such joy did him spight,
And cutte of hys dayes with untimely woe,
Betraying him into the traines of hys foe.
Now I, a waylfull widdowe behight,
Of my old age have this one delight,
To see thee succeede in thy fathers steade,
And florish in flowres of lustyhead:
For even so thy father his head upheld,
And so his hauty hornes did he weld.’
 
    Tho marking him with melting eyes,
A thrilling throbbe from her hart did aryse,
And interrupted all her other speache
With some old sorowe that made a newe breache:
Seemed shee sawe in the younglings face
The old lineaments of his fathers grace.
At last her solein silence she broke,
And gan his newe budded beard to stroke.
‘Kiddie,’ quoth shee, ‘thou kenst the great care
I have of thy health and thy welfare,
Which many wyld beastes liggen in waite
For to entrap in thy tender state:
But most the Foxe, maister of collusion;
For he has voued thy last confusion.
Forthy, my Kiddie, be ruld by mee,
And never give trust to his trecheree.
And if he chaunce come when I am abroade,
Sperre the yate fast, for feare of fraude;
Ne for all his worst, nor for his best,
Open the dore at his request.’
 
    So schooled the Gate her wanton sonne,
That answerd his mother, all should be done.
Tho went the pensife damme out of dore,
And chaunst to stomble at the threshold flore:
Her stombling steppe some what her amazed,
(For such as signes of ill luck bene dispraised)
Yet forth shee yode, thereat halfe aghast:
And kiddie the dore sperred after her fast.
It was not long after shee was gone,
But the false Foxe came to the dore anone:
Not as a foxe, for then he had be kend,
But all as a poore pedler he did wend,
Bearing a trusse of tryfles at hys backe,
As bells, and babes, and glasses, in hys packe.
A biggen he had got about his brayne,
For in his headpeace he felt a sore payne:
His hinder heele was wrapt in a clout,
For with great cold he had gotte the gout.
There at the dore he cast me downe hys pack,
And layd him downe, and groned, ‘Alack! alack!
Ah, deare Lord! and sweete Saint Charitee!
That some good body woulde once pitie mee!’
 
    Well heard Kiddie al this sore constraint,
And lengd to know the cause of his complaint:
Tho, creeping close behind the wickets clinck,
Prevelie he peeped out through a chinck:
Yet not so previlie but the Foxe him spyed:
For deceitfull meaning is double eyed.
‘Ah, good young maister!’ then gan he crye,
‘Jesus blesse that sweete face I espye,
And keepe your corpse from the carefull stounds
That in my carrion carcas abounds.’

The Kidd, pittying hys heavinesse,
Asked the cause of his great distresse,
And also who and whence that he were.
Tho he, that had well ycond his lere,
Thus medled his talke with many a teare:
‘Sicke, sicke, alas! and little lack of dead,
But I be relieved by your beastlyhead.
I am a poore sheepe, albe my coloure donne:
For with long traveile I am brent in the sonne.
And if that my grandsire me sayd be true,
Sicker, I am very sybbe to you:
So be your goodlihead doe not disdayne
The base kinred of so simple swaine.
Of mercye and favour then I you pray,
With your ayd to forstall my neere decay.’

    Tho out of his packe a glasse he tooke,
Wherein while Kiddie unwares did looke,
He was so enamored with the newell,
That nought he deemed deare for the jewell.
Tho opened he the dore, and in came
The false Foxe, as he were starke lame.
His tayle he clapt betwixt his legs twayne,
Lest he should be descried by his trayne.

    Being within, the Kidde made him good glee,
All for the love of the glasse he did see.
After his chere, the pedler can chat,
And tell many lesings of this and that,
And how he could shewe many a fine knack.
Tho shewed his ware and opened his packe,
All save a bell, which he left behind
In the basket for the Kidde to fynd.
Which when the Kidde stooped downe to catch,
He popt him in, and his basket did latch;
Ne stayed he once, the dore to make fast,
But ranne awaye with him in all hast.
 
    Home when the doubtfull damme had her hyde,
She mought see the dore stand open wyde.
All agast, lowdly she gan to call
Her Kidde; but he nould answere at all.
Tho on the flore she sawe the merchandise
Of which her sonne had sette to dere a prise.
What helpe? her Kidde shee knewe well was gone:
Shee weeped, and wayled, and made great mone.
Such end had the Kidde, for he nould warned be
Of craft coloured with simplicitie:
And such end, perdie, does all hem remayne
That of such falsers freendship bene fayne.
 
    Pal. Truly, Piers, thou art beside thy wit,
Furthest fro the marke, weening it to hit.
Now I pray thee, lette me thy tale borrowe
For our Sir John to say to morrowe
At the kerke, when it is holliday:
For well he meanes, but little can say.
But and if foxes bene so crafty as so,
Much needeth all shepheards hem to knowe.

    Piers. Of their falshode more could I recount:
But now the bright sunne gynneth to dismount;
And, for the deawie night now doth nye,
I hold it best for us home to hye.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from Complete Poetical Works, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Sunday, May 1, 2022

May and the Poets / Leigh Hunt

from To May

May and the Poets

    There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior,
May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May’s in all the Italian books;
She has old and modern nooks
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.

    Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May’s at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

~~
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
from Poetical Works, 1857

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Leigh Hunt biography

Penny's Top 20 / April 2022

             

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3.  Aprill, Edmund Spenser
  4.  East Coker (III-IV), T.S. Eliot
  5.  In April, David Morton
  6.  April, Rebecca Hey
  7.  An April Adoration, Charles G.D. Roberts
  8.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
  9.  Spring, Edna St. Vincent Millay
10.  Early April, James Oppenheim

11.  Early April in England, Percy McKay
12.  The Easter Flower, Claude McKay
13.  Skating, William Wordsworth
14.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon
15.  Spring Again, George J. Dance
16.  Always Marry an April Girl, Ogden Nash
17.  Spring, R.
18.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens 
19.  There Is No Cold in Christ, AE Reiff
20. The Night Piece, to Julia, Robert Herrick

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