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Sunday, July 31, 2022

July / Robert F. Skillings


July

A very pleasant month is this
    To be in a country town.
The sunlight doth the foliage kiss,
Each verdant leaflet beams with bliss,
    I see not one that's brown.

Fresh zephyrs fan the thrifty trees
    The oaks, the elms, the willows,
The lake's face caressed by the breeze
In imitation of the seas,
    Is flecked with tiny billows.

~~
Robert F. Skillings (1819-1902)
from Local and National Poets of America, 1890
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Photo: English Summer(ish). Photo by Alan Myers, 2010. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

A July Day / Eben E. Rexford


A July Day

In idle mood, this happy day,
I let the moments drift away;
I lie among the tangled grass
And watch the crinkling billows pass
O'er seas of clover. Like a tide
That sets across the meadow wide,
The crimson-crested ripples run
From isles of shade to shores of sun;
And one white lily seems to be
A sail upon this summer sea,
Blown northward, bringing me, to-day,
A fragrant freight from far Cathay.

Low as the wind that waves the rose
In gardens where the poppy grows,
And sweet as bells heard far away,
A robin sings his song to-day;
Sings softly, by his hidden nest,
A little roundelay of rest;
And as the wind his dwelling swings
He dreams his dream of unfledged wings,
While, blending with his song, I hear
A brook's low babble, somewhere near.

A glory wraps the hills, and seems
To weave an atmosphere of dreams
About the mountain's kingly crest
As sinks the sun adown the west.
Earth seems to sit with folded hands
In peace he only understands
Who has no care, no vain regret,
No sorrow he would fain forget,
And like a child upon her breast
I lie, this happy day, and rest.

The "green things growing" whisper me
Of many an earth-old mystery;
Of blossoms hiding in the mold,
And what the acorn cups enfold;
Of life unseen by eyes too dim
To look through Nature up to Him
Who writes the poem of the year
For human heart, and eye, and ear.

O summer day, surpassing fair,
With hints of heaven in earth and air,
Not long I keep you in my hold —
The book is closed—the tale is told.
The valley fills with amber mist;
The sky is gold and amethyst.
Soft, soft and low, and silver clear
The robin's vesper hymn I hear,
And see the stars lit, one by one.
The happy summer day is done.

~~
Eben E. Rexford (1848-1916)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Talk / AE Reiff



Talk

When it comes to talk
everything is song,
a water breath for gills
breathes song and sings,
breathe song and sing,
they sing, they sing,
Everything has breath.
Everything that has breath.

Everything with breath connects
beneath the silent disconnect,
pure as flame that disappears
in sight and sound forget.

It comes to all who breathe
that water breath, gill song,
a temporary exhalation
that everything else that will have breath
is breathing all along.

Yourself, to meditate a roof below,
communes a creature like no other,
so unique at times at least to say
no matter what I knew that day
when everything had breath. Here I am.

Breath inspires talk,
language, expression, thought,
suddenness of wings,
a base of wind, of dust and sun,
cry of a moment, each moment timed,
three hundred eternal
breathes with the same.
Anything that’s done or so recalls
is breathing the same breath as all.

That’s what breath in search of talk
like any unique thing means,
Sound of breath.
Everything seeks song unconfined,
for air and water breathers’ breath of gills
breathe life, breathe song and sing. They sing.
They sing.
Everything has breath.
Everything has breath.
Everything that has breath.

~~
AE Reiff
from Frigg, Spring/Summer 2021
[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Philosophy / Amy Levy


Philosophy


Ere all the world had grown so drear,
When I was young and you were here,
'Mid summer roses in summer weather,
What pleasant times we've had together!

We were not Phyllis, simple-sweet,
And Corydon; we did not meet
By brook or meadow, but among
A Philistine and flippant throng

Which much we scorned; (less rigorous
It had no scorn at all for us!)
How many an eve of sweet July,
Heedless of Mrs. Grundy's eye,

We've scaled the stairway's topmost height,
And sat there talking half the night;
And, gazing on the crowd below,
Thanked Fate and Heaven that made us so; —

To hold the pure delights of brain
Above light loves and sweet champagne.
For, you and I, we did eschew
The egoistic "I" and "you;"

And all our observations ran
On Art and Letters, Life and Man.
Proudly we sat, we two, on high,
Throned in our Objectivity;

Scarce friends, not lovers (each avers),
But sexless, safe Philosophers.

    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Dear Friend, you must not deem me light
If, as I lie and muse to-night,
I give a smile and not a sigh
To thoughts of our Philosophy.

~~
Amy Levy (1861-1889)
from A London Plane-tree, and other verse, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Amy Levy biography

Sunday, July 17, 2022

The Lonely Hunter / Fiona MacLeod


The Lonely Hunter

Green branches, green branches, I see you beckon; I follow!
Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-tree hollow.
There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white flowers,
Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is sleeping now,
And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his moon-white brow:
And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow
Wherein he dreams I am with him – and, dreaming, whispers, "Follow!"

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;
White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved human face:
O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of failing breath,
Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of a sorrow olden,
But now it is midsummer weather, earth-young, sunripe, golden:
Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-tree hollow,
But never a green leaf whispers, "Follow, oh, Follow, Follow!"

O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:
O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing
Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

~~
Fiona MacLeod (1855-1905)
from
From the Hills of Dream, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide
]

Fiona MacLeod autobiography

Saturday, July 16, 2022

July / H. Cordelia Ray


July

Sunshine and shadow play amid the trees
In bosky groves, while from the vivid sky
The sun’s gold arrows fleck the fields at noon,
        Where weary cattle to their slumber hie.
How sweet the music of the purling rill,
Trickling adown the grassy hill!
While dreamy fancies come to give repose
When the first star of evening glows.

~~
H. Cordelia Ray (1852-1916)
from Poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

Fredrik Marinus Kruseman (1816–1882), A Summer Landscape, 1863. Wikimedia Commons

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Answer July / Emily Dickinson


[386]

Answer July —
Where is the Bee —
Where is the Blush —
Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July —
Where is the Seed —
Where is the Bud —
Where is the May —
Answer Thee — Me —

Nay — said the May —
Show me the Snow —
Show me the Bells —
Show me the Jay!

Quibbled the Jay —
Where be the Maize —
Where be the Haze —
Where be the Bur?
Here — said the Year —

~~
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Saturday, July 9, 2022

A July Night / John Todhunter


A July Night

The dreamy, long, delicious afternoon
That filled the flowers with honey, and made well
With earliest nectar many a secret cell
Of pulping peaches, with a murmurous tune
Lulled all the woods and leas; but now, how soon
The winds have woke to break the sultry spell.
The drowsy flocks that low in the west did dwell,
Like oreads chased fleet madly by the moon!
So, Cleopatra-like has rich July,
A queen of many moods, outdreamed the day
To hold by night wild revel. Odors warm
Come panted with each gust, as royally,
Magnificent alike in calm or storm,
With some voluptuous anger she would play.

~~
John Todhunter (1839-1916)
from
Forest Songs, and other poems, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Todhunter biography

Monday, July 4, 2022

I Like Americans / Ernest Hemingway


I Like Americans

By A Foreigner

I like Americans.
They are so unlike Canadians.
They do not take their policemen seriously.
They come to Montreal to drink.
Not to criticize.
They claim they won the war.
But they know at heart that they didn't.
They have such respect for Englishmen.
They like to live abroad.
They do not brag about how they take baths.
But they take them.
Their teeth are so good.
And they wear B.V.D.'s all the year round.
I wish they didn't brag about it.
They have the second best navy in the world.
But they never mention it.
They would like to have Henry Ford for president.
But they will not elect him.
They saw through Bill Bryan.
They have gotten tired of Billy Sunday.
Their men have such funny hair cuts.
They are hard to suck in on Europe.
They have been there once.
They produced Barney Google, Mutt and Jeff.
And Jiggs.
They do not hang lady murderers.
They put them in vaudeville.
They read the Saturday Evening Post
And believe in Santa Claus.
When they make money
They make a lot of money.
They are fine people.

~~
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
from Toronto Star Weekly, 1923

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

Also read: "I Like Canadians"

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Julye / Edmund Spenser (1)

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

Julye. Æglogia Septima. 

ARGUMENT. This Æglogue is made in the honour and commendation of good shepeheardes, and to the shame and disprayse of proude and ambitious pastours: such as Morrell is here imagined to bee.


THOMALIN. MORRELL.

Thom. Is not thilke same a goteheard prowde,
    That sittes on yonder bancke,
Whose straying heard them selfe doth shrowde
    Emong the bushes rancke?

Mor. What ho! thou jollye shepheards swayne,
    Come up the hyll to me:
Better is then the lowly playne,
    Als for thy flocke and thee.

Thom. Ah, God shield, man, that I should clime,
    And learne to looke alofte;
This reede is ryfe, that oftentime
    Great clymbers fall unsoft.
In humble dales is footing fast,
    The trode is not so tickle,
And though one fall through heedlesse hast,
    Yet is his misse not mickle.
And now the Sonne hath reared up
    His fyriefooted teme,
Making his way betweene the Cuppe
    And golden Diademe:
The rampant Lyon hunts he fast,
    With Dogge of noysome breath,
Whose balefull barking bringes in hast
    Pyne, plagues, and dreery death.
Agaynst his cruell scortching heate
    Where hast thou coverture?
The wastefull hylls unto his threate
    Is a playne overture.
But if thee lust to holden chat
    With seely shepherds swayne,
Come downe, and learne the little what
    That Thomalin can sayne.

Mor. Syker, thous but a laesie loord,
    And rekes much of thy swinck,
That with fond termes, and weetlesse words,
    To blere myne eyes doest thinke.
In evill houre thou hentest in hond
    Thus holy hylles to blame,
For sacred unto saints they stond,
    And of them han theyr name.
St. Michels Mount who does not know,
    That wardes the westerne coste?
And of St. Brigets Bowre, I trow,
    All Kent can rightly boaste:
And they that con of Muses skill
    Sayne most-what, that they dwell
(As goteheards wont) upon a hill,
    Beside a learned well.
And wonned not the great god Pan
    Upon Mount Olivet,
Feeding the blessed flocke of Dan,
    Which dyd himselfe beget?

Thom. O blessed sheepe! O shepheard great,
    That bought his flocke so deare,
And them did save with bloudy sweat
    From wolves, that would them teare!

Mor. Besyde, as holy fathers sayne,
    There is a hyllye place,
Where Titan ryseth from the mayne,
    To renne hys dayly race:
Upon whose toppe the starres bene stayed,
    And all the skie doth leane;
There is the cave where Phebe layed
    The shepheard long to dreame.
Whilome there used shepheards all
    To feede theyr flocks at will,
Till by his foly one did fall,
    That all the rest did spill.
And sithens shepheardes bene foresayd
    From places of delight:
Forthy I weene thou be affrayd
    To clime this hilles height.
Of Synah can I tell thee more,
    And of Our Ladyes Bowre:
But little needes to strow my store,
    Suffice this hill of our.
Here han the holy Faunes recourse,
    And Sylvanes haunten rathe;
Here has the salt Medway his sourse,
    Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe;
The salt Medway, that trickling stremis
    Adowne the dales of Kent,
Till with his elder brother Themis
    His brackish waves be meynt.
Here growes melampode every where,
    And teribinth, good for gotes:
The one, my madding kiddes to smere,
    The next, to heale theyr throtes.
Hereto, the hills bene nigher heven,
    And thence the passage ethe:
As well can prove the piercing levin,
    That seeldome falls bynethe.

Thom. Syker, thou speakes lyke a lewde lorrell,
    Of heaven to demen so:
How be I am but rude and borrell,
    Yet nearer wayes I knowe.
To kerke the narre, from God more farre,
    Has bene an old sayd sawe,
And he that strives to touch the starres
    Oft stombles at a strawe.
Alsoone may shepheard clymbe to skye,
    That leades in lowly dales,
As goteherd prowd, that, sitting hye,
    Upon the mountaine sayles.
My seely sheepe like well belowe,
    They neede not melampode:
For they bene hale enough, I trowe,
    And liken theyr abode.
But, if they with thy gotes should yede,
    They soone myght be corrupted,
Or like not of the frowie fede,
    Or with the weedes be glutted.
The hylls where dwelled holy saints
    I reverence and adore:
Not for themselfe, but for the sayncts
    Which han be dead of yore.
And nowe they bene to heaven forewent,
    Theyr good is with them goe,
Theyr sample onely to us lent,
    That als we mought doe soe.

[continued in part 2 . . .]

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Julye / Edmund Spenser (2)

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

Julye  [. . . continued from part 1]

[THOMALIN.    MORRELL.]

Thom. Shepheards they weren of the best,
    And lived in lowlye leas:
And sith theyr soules bene now at rest,
    Why done we them disease?
Such one he was (as I have heard
    Old Algrind often sayne)
That whilome was the first shepheard,
    And lived with little gayne:
As meeke he was as meeke mought be,
    Simple as simple sheepe,
Humble, and like in eche degree
    The flocke which he did keepe.
Often he used of hys keepe
    A sacrifice to bring,
Nowe with a kidde, now with a sheepe
    The altars hallowing.
So lowted he unto hys Lord,
    Such favour couth he fynd,
That sithens never was abhord
    The simple shepheards kynd.
And such, I weene, the brethren were
    That came from Canaan,
The brethren twelve, that kept yfere
    The flockes of mighty Pan.
But nothing such thilk shephearde was
    Whom Ida hyll dyd beare,
That left hys flocke to fetch a lasse,
    Whose love he bought to deare.
For he was proude, that ill was payd,
    (No such mought shepheards bee)
And with lewde lust was overlayd:
    Tway things doen ill agree.
But shepheard mought be meeke and mylde,
    Well eyed as Argus was,
With fleshly follyes undefyled,
    And stoute as steede of brasse.
Sike one (sayd Algrin) Moses was,
    That sawe hys Makers face,
His face, more cleare then christall glasse,
    And spake to him in place.
This had a brother, (his name I knewe)
    The first of all his cote,
A shepheard trewe, yet not so true
    As he that earst I hote.
Whilome all these were lowe and lief,
    And loved their flocks to feede,
They never stroven to be chiefe,
    And simple was theyr weede.
But now (thanked be God therefore)
    The world is well amend,
Their weedes bene not so nighly wore;
    Such simplesse mought them shend:
They bene yclad in purple and pall,
    So hath theyr God them blist,
They reigne and rulen over all,
    And lord it as they list:
Ygyrt with belts of glitter and gold,
    (Mought they good sheepeheards bene)
Theyr Pan theyr sheepe to them has sold;
    I saye as some have seene.
For Palinode (if thou him ken)
    Yode late on pilgrimage
To Rome, (if such be Rome) and then
    He sawe thilke misusage.
For shepeheards, sayd he, there doen leade,
    As lordes done other where;
Theyr sheepe han crustes, and they the bread;
    The chippes, and they the chere:
They han the fleece, and eke the flesh;
    (O seely sheepe the while!)
The corne is theyrs, let other thresh,
    Their hands they may not file.
They han great stores and thriftye stockes,
    Great freendes and feeble foes:
What neede hem caren for their flocks?
    Theyr boyes can looke to those.
These wisards weltre in welths waves,
    Pampred in pleasures deepe;
They han fatte kernes, and leany knaves,
    Their fasting flockes to keepe.
Sike mister men bene all misgone,
    They heapen hylles of wrath:
Sike syrlye shepheards han we none,
    They keepen all the path.

Mor. Here is a great deale of good matter
    Lost for lacke of telling.
Now sicker I see, thou doest but clatter:
    Harme may come of melling.
Thou medlest more then shall have thanke,
    To wyten shepheards welth:
When folke bene fat, and riches rancke,
    It is a signe of helth.
But say me, what is Algrin, he
    That is so oft bynempt?

Thom. He is a shepheard great in gree,
    But hath bene long ypent.
One daye he sat upon a hyll,
    As now thou wouldest me:
But I am taught, by Algrins ill,
    To love the lowe degree.
For sitting so with bared scalpe,
    An eagle sored hye,
That, weening hys whyte head was chalke,
    A shell fish downe let flye:
She weend the shell fishe to have broake,
    But therewith bruzd his brayne;
So now, astonied with the stroke,
    He lyes in lingring payne.

Mor. Ah, good Algrin! his hap was ill,
    But shall be bett in time.
Now farwell, shepheard, sith thys hyll
    Thou hast such doubt to climbe.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Friday, July 1, 2022

Penny's Top 20 / June 2022

               

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  June Rain, Richard Aldington
  2.  The Flute of Spring, Bliss Carman
  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  4.  News, AE Reiff
  5.  A Night in June, Madison Cawein
  6.  June, Rebecca Hey
  7.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  8.  All in June, W.H. Davies
  9.  In June and Gentle Oven, Anne Wilkinson
10.  June Thunder, Louis MacNeice

11.  At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance
12.  Garden Wireless, Carl Sandburg
13.  When the Brow of June, Emily Pfeiffer
14.  7/16/69, George J. Dance
15.  June, Edmund Spenser
16.  My Father, Ann Taylor
17.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon 
18.  Skating, William Wordsworth
19.  The Man with the Blue Guitar, Wallace Stevens
20. The Poplars, Bernard Freeman Trotter

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

Home / Marthe Bijman


Home

Where we come from there are
raindrops that instantly evaporate on hot tar
like a field of tiny smoking fires,
low-running, brownish rivers
filled with rusty sludge and simmering rocks,
muddy dams with chalky banks
and wormy, warmish, silty bottoms.
heat that hits you in the chest
and wipes its oven mitt paw over your face,
white skies, or palest blue
or yellow and boiling, like curry, from the dust.

We were born creatures of arid habits:–
the subconscious searching of the sky
for rain clouds,
the inborn waiting for the rain,
the constant sniffing for the ozone after thunder,
the habitual drawing towards water,
always looking for some dampness
in the cracked, jigsaw-puzzle earth.

Where we live now there's
Snow,
that goes away
but not far,
and always comes back,
Water,
that burbles and rushes
always somewhere close,
glistening underneath jungly things,
Green things,
the tree-green, frog-green, grass-green,
bird-green, moss-green of our replete dreams,
the green, wet, snowy, tree-y place
we call home.

~~
Marthe Bijman
from
Seven Circumstances

["Home" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Generic License.]