Ancient Music / Ezra Pound

Ancient Music

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
        Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.

Freezeth river, turneth liver,
        Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
        So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

~~
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
From Blast! 2, July 1915

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

Jazz Guy, Blizzard Day in NYC, 2010. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

See also: Cuckoo Song (Sumer is icumen in)

Ezra Pound biography

January / H. Cordelia Ray

January

To herald in another year,
        With rhythmic note the snowflakes fall
Silently from their crystal courts,
        To answer Winter's call.
Wake, mortal! Time is winged anew!
        Call Love and Hope and Faith to fill
The chambers of thy soul to-day;
        Life hath its blessings still!

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

Olga 1969, Porvoo, Finland,, Old City in January, 2016. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Winter Sketch, Rockcliffe, Ottawa / Anne Wilkinson

Winter Sketch, Rockcliffe, Ottawa

Down domestic roads the snow plough, snorting
Stacks a crop of winter, spills it high
To hedgerows alped with lilies; in the valley
White is wag, is daisy till
The sun aloft and hot with husbandry
Beheads the flowers.

Behind the plough the cold air flies a spume
As soft and adamant as swans
Where snow’s vacation is to etherize
The wood and choke the town’s
Hard arteries with drifts of chloroform.
And all the long excessive day the ploughman
Steers his dreaming over the hill
To the faraway hour that carries his frostbite home.

Such storm of white
Bound by the black extravagance of night
Makes winding sheet our myth-told-many-a-bed-time tale
Till April babble swells the shroud to breast
So milky full the whole north swills, licking
A world of sugar from encrusted nipples
Springful and swollen with love.

And tusked with icicles, the houses here
Bog stuporous in slow white sand, guard
Their docile lawns with walls that boast
Immaculate conception in a cloud
Made big by polar ghost.
In suburb of the forest, men walk shy,
Dismembered by two worlds;
Only the uncurled ears of children hear
The coyotes mating in a neighbour’s acre,
Theirs the only hands whose thumbs work free
To sculpt a tower leaning tipsy with unPisan laughter;
And being young, flexible pink tongues

Rename a carrot, nose;
Nose on hump of snow they crystal christen
Christ, the stillborn man;
Then herd their feet to kick the undefiled
When eyes still whey with vision see
That chastity, though white, is wormed with sleep
.
O watch the child lie down and lusty swing
His arms to angel in his image, sing
“I dare the snow my wings to keep.”

~~
Anne Wilkinson (1910-1961)
from Counterpoint to Sleep, 1951

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Anne Wilkinson biography

Earl Andrew, Houses on Rockcliffe Way, Ottawa, 2021. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

A Winter Day / Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Winter Day

I

The air is silent save where stirs
A bugling breeze among the firs;
The virgin world in white array
Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;
All heaven blooms rarely in the east
Where skies are silvery and fleeced,
And o'er the orient hills made glad
The morning comes in wonder clad;
Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see
How beautiful the dawn can be!


II

Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendor crowns the woods
And bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter's day.


III

Faint music rings in wold and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow;
Beyond a valley dim and far
Lit by an occidental star,
Tall pines the marge of day beset
Like many a slender minaret,
Whence priest-like winds on crystal air
Summon the reverent world to prayer.

~~
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
from The Watchman, and other poems, 1916

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

Lucy Maud Montgomery biography

"A Winter Day" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, LibriVox audiobook

The Winter Scene (I-II) / Bliss Carman

The Winter Scene

I

The rutted roads are all like iron; skies
Are keen and brilliant; only the oak-leaves cling
In the bare woods, or the hardy bitter-sweet;
Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on;
And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice
That rings with stroke of skate and hockey-stick,
Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop.
Bring in the logs of oak and hickory,
And make an ample blaze on the wide hearth.
Now is the time, with winter o'er the world,
For books and friends and yellow candle-light,
And timeless lingering by the settling fire.
While all the shuddering stars are keen with cold.

"Winter Scenes Prelude & I: Shuddering Stars," composed by Donald Skirvin

II

Out from the silent portal of the hours,

When frosts are come and all the hosts put on.

Their burnished gear to march across the night

And o'er a darkened earth in splendor shine,

Slowly above the world Orion wheels

His glittering square, while on the shadowy hill

And throbbing like a sea-light through the dusk,

Great Sirius rises in his flashing blue.

Lord of the winter night, august and pure,

Returning year on year untouched by time,

To hearten faith with thine unfaltering fire,

There are no hurts that beauty cannot ease,

No ills that love cannot at last repair,

In the victorious progress of the soul.

~~

Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

from Sanctuary: Sunshine House sonnets, 1929

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

Bliss Carman biography

"Winter Scenes II: Unfaltering Fire," composed by Donald Skirvin

The Winter Scene (III-IV) / Bliss Carman

The Winter Scene

III

Russet and white and gray is the oak wood
In the great snow. Still from the North it comes,
Whispering, settling, sifting through the trees,
O'erloading branch and twig. The road is lost.
Clearing and meadow, stream and ice-bound pond
Are made once more a trackless wilderness
In the white hush where not a creature stirs;
And the pale sun is blotted from the sky.
In that strange twilight the lone traveller halts
To listen to the stealthy snowflakes fall.
And then far off toward the Stamford shore,
Where through the storm the coastwise liners go,
Faint and recurrent on the muffled air,
A foghorn booming through the smother – hark!

"Winter Scenes III: Strange Twilight," composed by Donald Skirvin

IV

When the day changed and the mad wind died down,
The powdery drifts that all day long had blown
Across the meadows and the open fields,
Or whirled like diamond dust in the bright sun,
Settled to rest, and for a tranquil hour
The lengthening bluish shadows on the snow
Stole down the orchard slope, and a rose light
Flooded the earth with beauty and with peace.
Then in the west behind the cedars black
The sinking sun stained red the winter dusk
With sullen flare upon the snowy ridge,--
As in a masterpiece by Hokusai,
Where on a background gray, with flaming breath
A scarlet dragon dies in dusky gold.

~~
Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
from Sanctuary: Sunshine House sonnets, 1929

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

Bliss Carman biography

"Winter Scenes IV: "Dusky Gold", composed by Donald Skirvin

Winter / Walter de la Mare [1916]

 

Winter

        Clouded with snow
        The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
        Alone sings now.

        The rayless sun,
        Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
        Unearthly white.

        Thick draws the dark,
        And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
        Floats the white moon.

~~

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

from The Listeners, and other poems, 1916

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

Walter de la Mere biography

Braggart / Dorothy Parker

Braggart

The days will rally, wreathing
Their crazy tarantelle;
And you must go on breathing,
But I'll be safe in hell.

Like January weather,
The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.

The pretty stuff you're made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye.

You will go faltering after
The bright, imperious line,
And split your throat on laughter,
And burn your eyes with brine.

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
Whilst I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead.

~~
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
from Enough Rope, 1926

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

Dorothy Parker biography

"Braggart" read by Mandy Sykes

At the New Year / Kenneth Patchen

At the New Year

In the shape of this night, in the still fall
            of snow, Father
In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds
            and children
In everything that moves tonight, the trolleys
            and the lovers, Father
In the great hush of country, in the ugly noise
            of our cities
In this deep throw of stars, in those trenches
            where the dead are, Father
In all the wide land waiting, and in the liners
            out on the black water
In all that has been said bravely, in all that is
            mean anywhere in the world, Father
In all that is good and lovely, in every house
            where sham and hatred are
In the name of those who wait, in the sound
            of angry voices, Father
Before the bells ring, before this little point in time
            has rushed us on
Before this clean moment has gone, before this night
            turns to face tomorrow, Father
There is this high singing in the air
Forever this sorrowful human face in eternity’s window
And there are other bells that we would ring, Father
Other bells that we would ring.

~~
Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972)
from Collected Poems, 1969

Kenneth Patchen biography

"At the New Year," read by The Forthcoming Triumphants

January's featured poem

  

The Penny Blog's featured poem for January 2023:

The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/01/snow-man-wallace-stevens.html

Penny's Top 20 / December 2022

                     

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  December, Edmund Spenser

  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  4.  Cease Fire, George J. Dance

  5.  A Christmas Childhood, Patrick Kavanagh
  6.  Love came down at Christmas, Christina Rossetti
  7.  December, Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  8.  It came upon the midnight clear, Edmund H. Sears
  9.  Come, come, thou bleak December wind, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

10.  Sagacity, William Rose Benét

11.  London Snow, Robert Bridges
12.  December, Ina Coolbrith
13.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance

14.  A December Day, J.A. Kerr
15.  Bird Cage, Hector de Saint Denys Garneau
16.  Christmas, G.A. Studdert Kennedy
17.  The Dwarf, Walllace Stevens

18.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin
19.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

20. Card Game, Frank Prewett

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

Penny's Top 100 of 2022

The 100 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during 2022:

  1. June Rain, Richard Aldington
  2. Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  3. Skating, William Wordsworth
  4. At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance 
  5. The Flute of Spring, Bliss Carman

  6. There Is No Cold in Christ, AE Reiff

  7. Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  8. 7/16/69, George J. Dance

  9. Pattern, AE Reiff
10. News, AE Reiff

11. The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
12. Talk, AE Reiff
13. O Canada, the Land We Love, David Pekrul
14. Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett
15. Februarie, Edmund Spenser

16. June Dreams in January, Sidney Lanier
17. A Midwinter Night's Eve, George J. Dance
18. A Morning Song (for the first day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon
19. Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens
20. Moonlight Alert, Yvor Winters

21. August, Edmund Spenser
22. December, Edmund Spenser
23. Hymn, Jack Kerouac
24. November, Edmund Spenser
25. Upon Julia's Clothes, Robert Herrick

26. Spring Again, George J. Dance
27. Birches, Robert Frost
28. White House, Anna Akhmatova
29. September 9, George J. Dance
30. Bird Cage, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

31. To My Sister, William Wordsworth
32. The Months, Sara Coleridge
33. September, Edmund Spenser
34. When Snow Lies Deep, William Canton
35. Julye, Edmund Spenser

36. Aprill, Edmund Spenser
37. Now dreary dawns the eastern light, A.E. Housman
38. March, Rebecca Hey
39. Card Game, Frank Prewitt
40. March, A.E. Housman

41. In February, John Addington Symonds
42. J.B. Corot, John Payne
43. Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens
44. My True Love Hath My Heart, Phillip Sidney
45. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments, William Shakespeare

46. A Night in June, Madison Cawein
47. November, Amy Lowell
48. May and the Poets, Leigh Hunt
49. Believe It or Not, George J. Dance
50. Hockey War, David Pekrul
 
51. July, Robert F. Skillings
52. East Coker (III-IV), T.S. Eliot
53. May Night, Sara Teasdale
54. Beeny Cliff, Thomas Hardy
55. The Winter Moonlight, Clark Ashton Smith

56. Winter Twilight, Bliss Carman
57. Januarie, Edmund Spenser
58. Spring, R.
59. Garden Wireless, Carl Sandburg
60. Ode, Composed on May Morning, William Wordsworth

61. March, Mary Mapes Dodge
62. A Christmas Childhood, Patrick Kavanagh 
63. East Coker (V), T.S. Eliot
64. New Year's Eve, 1913, Gordon Bottomley

65. Home, Marthe Bijman

66. October, Patrick Kavanagh

67. April, Rebecca Hey
68. An April Adoration, Charles G.D. Roberts
69. February, Jane G. Austin
70. In April, David Morton

71. A July Night, John Todhunter
72. I Like Americans, Ernest Hemingway
73. A light exists in spring, Emily Dickinson
74. Always Marry an April Girl, Ogden Nash
75. A July Day, Eben E. Rexford

76. The Call, Jessie Pope
77. Men Who March Away, Thomas Hardy
78. An August Cricket, Arthur Goodenough
79. Maye, Edmund Spenser
80. Early April, James Oppenheim

81. When the Brow of June, Emily Pfeiffer
82. To October, William Curtis
83. October Afternoon in Bad Kreuth, Bavaria, Mary Devenport O'Neill
84. The Country Faith, Norman Gale
85. Answer July, Emily Dickinson

86. June, Rebecca Hey
87. It Is Not Always May, Henry Wadworth Longfellow
88. Afternoon on a Hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay
89. October's Bright Blue Weather, Helen Hunt Jackson
90. Early April in England, Percy Mackaye

91. Winter: An elegy, Henry James Pye
92. All in June, W.H. Davies
93. Spring, Edna St. Vincent Millay
94. Sunlight, AE Reiff
95. June Thunder, Louis MacNeice

96. October's gold is dim, David Gray
97. The Man with the Blue Guitar, Wallace Stevens
98. March, Edmund Spenser
99. Late October, Sylvester Baxter
100. Love came down at Christmas, Christina Rossetti


Source: Blogger, "Stats"