Summer Stars / Carl Sandburg

Summer Stars

Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
               So lazy and hum-strumming.

~~
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
from Smoke and Steel, 1920

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

Carl Sandburg biography

NJCHCI, Summer Stars above St. Suvorova, 2013. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Dawn in the June Woods / William Wilfred Campbell

Dawn in the June Woods

When over the edge of night
    The stars pale one by one,
And out of his streams of light
    Rising, the great red sun

Lifteth his splendors up
    Over the hush of the world,
And draining night's ebon cup,
    Leaveth some stars impearled,

Still on its crystal rim,
    Fading like bubbles away,
As out of their cloud-meadows dim,
    The dawn winds blow in this way;

Then bathed in cool dewy wells,
    Old longings of life renew,
Till here in these morning dells
    The dreamings of earth come true;

As up each sun-jewelled slope.
    Over the night-hallowed land.
Wonder and Beauty and Hope
    Walk silently hand in hand.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918)
from Lake Lyrics, and other poems, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wilfred Campbell biography

 Jason Jenkins, Universal Gradient (8558087317), 2013. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

On My First Son / Ben Jonson

On My First Son

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

~~
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
from Epigrams, 1616

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ben Jonson biography

"On My First Son" read by Robert Pinsky. Courtesy YouTube.

June / William Cullen Bryant

June

I gazed upon the glorious sky
    And the green mountains round;
And thought that when I came to lie
    Within the silent ground,
Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
    And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton’s hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mould,
    A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it rolled,
    While fierce the tempests beat —
Away!— I will not think of these —
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
    Earth green beneath the feet,
And be the damp mould gently pressed
Into my narrow place of rest.

Bryant obelisk, Roslyn Cemetery,
 New York. Courtesy Find a Grave.

There through the long, long summer hours,
    The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
    Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale close beside my cell;
    The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife bee and humming-bird.

And what if cheerful shouts at noon
    Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon
    With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothèd lovers walk in sight
    Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see
    The season’s glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me,
    Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
    They might not haste to go.
Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their softened hearts should bear
    The thought of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
    The gladness of the scene;
Whose part, in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
    Is — that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.

~~

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

from Poems, 1848

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Cullen Bryant biography

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket / Leigh Hunt

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that’s heard amidst the lazy noon,
When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;

O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both seem giv'n to earth
To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song —
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

~~
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
from Poetical Works, 1832

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Leigh Hunt biography

Nayanjan1306, Katydid (Bush cricket or Long-horned grasshopper), 2015. 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. 

See also: "On the Grasshopper and the Cricket," by John Keats

June in Maine / Hannah Augusta Moore

June in Maine

Beautiful, beautiful summer!
Odorous, exquisite June!
All the sweet roses in blossom,
All the sweet birdies in tune.

Dew on the meadows at sunset;
Gems on the meadows at morn;
Melody hushing the evening;
Melody greeting the dawn.

All the dim aisles of the forest
Ringing and thrilling with song;
Music — a flood-tide of music —
Poured the green valleys along.

Rapturous creatures of beauty.
Winging their way through the sky,
Heavenward warble their praises —
Mount our thanksgivings as high?

Lo! when a bird is delighted,
His ecstasy prompts him to soar;
The greater, the fuller his rapture,
His songs of thanksgiving the more.

See how the winds from the mountains
Sweep over meadows most fair;
The green fields are tossed like the ocean,
Are shadowed by clouds in the air.

For now fleecy shadows are chasing
The sunshine from woodland and vale,
As white clouds come gathering slowly,
Blown up by the sweet-scented gale

Birds and the gales and the flowers
Call us from study away,
Out to the fields where the mowers
Soon will be making the hay.

Buttercups, daisies, and clover,
Roses, sweet-briar, and fern,
Mingle their breath on the breezes —
Who from such wooing could turn?

Out! to the heath and the mountain,
Where mid the fern and the brake,
Under the pines and the spruces,
Fragrant the bower we will make.

Ravishing voices of Nature,
Ye conquer — and never too soon —
We yield to thy luscious embraces,
Thou odorous, exquisite June!

~~

Hannah Augusta Moore (1828- )
from National and Local Poets of America, 1892

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Hannah Augusta Moore biography

DrStew82, View from the summit of Bald Mountain, Maine, June 2017.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

June / H. Cordelia Ray

Agathe Pilon (1777-1846), Roses in a Vase.
Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

June

Roses, roses, roses,
Creamy, Fragrant, dewy!
        See the rainbow shower!
    Was there e'er so sweet a flower?
I'm the rose-nymph June they call me.
    Sunset's blush is not more fair
            Than the gift of bloom so rare,
Mortal, that I bring to thee!

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

The Poet in June / M.P.A. Crozier

The Poet in June

'Tis bliss to have the poet's heart
That loves the quietude of things,
Where nature smiles her bidden rocks,
And brings out sweet and cooling springs.

The June-green grass beneath my feet,
The dandelion's disk of gold,
The corn's slim spire just pushing out
From clean brown beds of kindly mold.

Bid welcome as I pass along
The harvest way across the lea;
While songs of birds are in my soul.
And eyes of flowers make love to me.

Down in the meadow's gliding stream
The children splash their snowy feet,
And all their laughter comes to me
Across the fields of growing wheat.

~~
M.P.A. Crozier (1834-1912)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

M.P.A. Crozier biography

Ian S, Leeds County Way toward Biggin Farm, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

June's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for June:

Spring Morning, by A.A. Milne

[...]
If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"
[...]

(read by Miss Katy)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2013/06/spring-morning-milne.html

Penny's Top 20 / May 2023

                         

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in May 2023:

  1.  Maye, Edmund Spenser

  2.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

  3.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

  4.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  5.  August, Edmund Spenser
  6.  Mother to Son, Langston Hughes
  7.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

  8.  May Day, Sara Teasdale
  9.  Ode on the Spring, Thomas Gray

10.  The Hymn to May, Nathaniel Evans

11.  May, H. Cordelia Ray
12.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
13.  Corrina's Going a-Maying, Robert Herrick

14.  May Day, Thomas MacDonagh
15.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
16.  In Early May, Bliss Carman

17.  May, David Atwood Wasson

18.  The April Day, Caroline Bowles Southey
19.  Spring Rains, George Sulzbach

20. Autumn, T.E. Hulme

Source: Blogger, "Stats"