Christmas at Melrose / Leslie Pinckney Hill

Christmas at Melrose

Come home with me a little space
And browse about our ancient place,
Lay by your wonted troubles here
And have a turn of Christmas cheer.
These sober walls of weathered stone
Can tell a romance of their own,
And these wide rooms of devious line
Are kindly meant in their design.
Sometimes the north wind searches through,
But be shall not be rude to you.
We’ll light a log of generous girth
For winter comfort, and the mirth
Of healthy children you shall see
About a sparkling Christmas tree.
Eleanor, leader of the fold,
Hermione with heart of gold,
Elaine with comprehending eyes,
And two more yet of coddling size,
Natalie pondering all that’s said,
And Mary with the cherub head —
All these shall give you sweet content
And care-destroying merriment,
While one with true madonna grace
Moves round the glowing fire-place
Where father loves to muse aside
And grandma sits in silent pride.
And you may chafe the wasting oak,
Or freely pass the kindly joke
To mix with nuts and home-made cake
And apples set on coals to bake.
Or some fine carol we will sing
In honor of the Manger King
Or hear great Milton’s organ verse
Or Plato’s dialogue rehearse
What Socrates with his last breath
Sublimely said of life and death.
These dear delights we fain would share
With friend and kinsman everywhere,
And from our door see them depart
Each with a little lighter heart.

~~

Leslie Pinckney Hill (1880-1960)

from The Wings of Oppression, 1921

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

Leslie Pinckney Hill biography 

"Christmas at Melrose" read by the Pen to Ptint Creative Writing Community.

Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas-streets / Alexander Smith

from Sonnets

Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas-streets,
But I am sitting in my silent room,
Sitting all silent in congenial gloom.
To-night, while half the world the other greets
With smiles and grasping hands and drinks and meats,
I sit and muse on my poetic doom;
Like the dim scent within a budded rose,
A joy is folded in my heart; and when
I think on Poets nurtured 'mong the throes,
And by the lowly hearths of common men, —
Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode
With gorgeous music growing to a close,
Deep-muffled as the dead -march of a god, —
My heart is burning to be one of those.

~~
Alexander Smith (1830-1867)
from Poems, 1853

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alexander Smith biography

Jacobus Josephus Eeckhout  (1793–1861), Writing Man, 1859. 

Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. 

Thou Gloomy December / Robert Burns

Thou Gloomy December

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!
    Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care:
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember –
    Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair!

Fond lovers' parting is sweet, painful pleasure,
    Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!
    Is anguish unmingled, and agony pure!

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,
    Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown,
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom,
    Till my last hope and last comfort is gone!

Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,
    Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care;
For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
    Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.

~~
Robert Burns (1759-1796), 1791

from Scots Musical Museum, 1796

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Robert Burns biography

"Thou Gloomy December" read by Robert Carlyle. Courtesy Robert Carlyle Italia.

Before the Snow / George Parsons Lathrop

Before the Snow

Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
    Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
    Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.

Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
    Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
    By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.

Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
    The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
    Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!

Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
    Of that which makes moods dear,— some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
    We walked in,— memory's rare environing.

And, though they die, the seasons only take
    A ruined substance. All that's best remains
In the essential vision that can make
    One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.

~~
George Parsons Lathrop (1851-1898)
from Dreams and Days, 1892

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Parsons Lathrop biography

Tom Thompson (1877-1917), Autumn Birches, 1916. Wikimedia Commons.

December's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for December 2024:

In the Bleak Mid-winter, by Christina Rossetti 

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone

[...]

(sung by James Taylor)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-bleak-mid-winter-christina-rossetti.html

 

Penny's Top 20 / November 2024

                                           

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in November 2024:

  1.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  2.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  3.  December, John Clare

  4.  Moonlight Alert, Yvor Winters

  5.  November, George J. Dance

  6.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams
  7.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

  8.  For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon
  9.  The Thrush, Edward Thomas

10.  The Death of the Flowers, William Cullen Bryant 

11.  How Sleep the Brave, William Collins

12.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

13.  November in the City, Edith Wyatt

14.  In November, Bliss Carman

15.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

16.  Design for November, William Carlos Williams

17.  November, Edwin Arnold

18.  November, Hartley Coleridge
19.  The March, J.C. Squire

20. 4 autumn American Haiku, Jack Kerouac

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

November / Hartley Coleridge

Sonnet XVI. 

November

The mellow year is hasting to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast –
That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows:
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glass'd,
Hangs a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows: 

 In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine,
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.

~~

Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

from Poems, Songs, and Sonnets, 1833

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Hartley Coleridge biography

"November" read by Thomas D.

In November / Bliss Carman

In November

(Huitain)

With apple-bloom and scented buds of May
    And sweet winds born, how should the summer know,
When sweeps of leafless hills are desolate grey,
    The soft ethereal beauty of the snow?
    But we came through the spring, and still, below
The passion for all sensuous loveliness,
    Remember a white eternity aglow
With silent dawn, still-aired and passionless.

~~
Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
from Through the Year with the Poets, 1886

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

Bliss Carman biography

Apollyon, Winter Stream in Marjaniemi, Helsinki, Finland, 2006. Wikimedia Commons.

Design for November / William Carlos Williams

Design for November

Joseph Vernet (1714-1789),

The Four Times of Day: Midday, 1757 

(detail). Wikimedia Commons.

Let confusion be the design
and all my thoughts go,
swallowed by desire: recess
from promises in
the November of your arms.
Release from the rose: broken
reeds, strawpale,
through which, from easy
branches that mock the blood
a few leaves fall. There
the mind is cradled,
stripped also and returned
to the ground, a trivial
and momentary clatter. Sleep
and be brought down and so
condone the world, eased of
the jagged sky and all
its petty imageries, flying
birds, its fogs and windy
phalanxes . . .

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
from Collected Later Poems, 1944

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

William Carlos Williams biography

November in the City / Edith Wyatt

November in the City

    I

Tonight the rain blows down from misty places
Above the roof-tops where the pigeons fly:
And quick the steps; intent, the city's faces
That say that we must hurry — you and I.
Oh, why ? So much speeds through this twilight rain-time,
That's not worth keeping up with. By-and-by
We'll wonder why we always knew the traintime,
And yet knew not November — you and I.

    II

In quiet let us hark. Not till we listen
Shall any song arise for you and me;
Nor ever this broad-stippling music glisten
Twice-told at twilight down the city sea.
The fog-horns call. The lake-winds rush. Just lately
I watched the city lights bloom star on star
Along the streets : and terrace-spaced and stately
Touch moated height and coronet afar.
November's winds blow towards the garnered grain-land.
Blue-buoyed all the shepherd whistles bay:
And flocking down Chicago's dusk-barred main land
The steam and fog-fleeced mists run, buff and gray.
Silence and sound. Wide echoes. Rain-dropped spaces.
Deep-rumbling dray and dipping trolley car.
Steps multitudinous and countless faces.
Along the cloudy street, lit star on star.

    III

Oh, had you thought that only woods and oceans
Were meant to speak the truth to you and me —
That only tides' and stars' immortal motions
Said we are part of all eternity?
The rains that fall and fly in silver tangent,
The passing steps, the fogs that die and live,
These chords that pale and darken, hushed and plangent
Sing proud the praise of splendors fugitive.
For fleet-pulsed mists, and mortal steps and faces
More move me than the tides that know no years —
And music blown from rain-swept human places
More stirs me than the stars untouched with tears.
I think that such a night as this has never
Sung argent here before: and not again
With all these tall-roofed intervals that sever
These streets and corners, etched with lamp-lit rain
Tell just this cool-thrilled tale of Midland spaces
And lake-born mists, that black-lined building's prow
That cuts the steam, this dream in peopled places
That sings its deep-breathed beauty here and now.

    IV

November winds wing towards the garnered grain-land.
The city lights have risen. Proud and free,
Far music swinging down the dusk-barred main land
Cries we are part of all eternity.
Let tne remember, let me rise and sing it!
For others may the mountains be the sign,
Sun, stars, the wooded earth, the seas that ring it,
Of melody immortal. Here is mine.
This night when rain blows down through Midland spaces
And lake-born mists. A black-lined building's prow
That cuts the steam. A dream in peopled places
That sings its deep-breathed beauty here and now.

~~

Edith Wyatt (1873-1958)

from The Wind in the Corn, and other poems, 1917

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

Edith Wyatt biography

Britta Heise, Chicago Night River, November 2011. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

November / Edwin Arnold

November

Come! in thy veil of ashen cloud
With mists around thee, like a shroud,
And wan face coloured with no light
Of sun or moon, by day or night;
I would not see thee glad and gay,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

I would not see thee otherwise,
Gray month! that hast the dying eyes;
Cold month! that com'st with icy hands
Chaining the waters and the lands!
So didst thou chill two hearts at play,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

And yet, I know, behind thy mists
The bright Sun shines, Love's star subsists!
If we could lift thy veil, may be,
Thy hidden face were good to see!
Come as thou wilt — I say not nay,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), 1865

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edwin Arnold biography

Thanurietz, Rain and Misty Mountains, November 2017 (detail). 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

How Sleep the Brave / William Collins

Ode

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

~~
William Collins (1721-1759), 1746 

from Poems, 1898

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Collins biography

"How Sleep the Brave" read by Joshua David Robinson. Courtesy  Lincoln’sCottage .

The Death of the Flowers / William Cullen Bryant

The Death Of The Flowers

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

~~

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

from Poems, 1848

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Cullen Bryant biography

Librivox, "The Death of the Flowers." Courtesy Poems Cafe.

November / George J. Dance

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Rain, November 1889.
Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

November

        dying land
            crying sky
                cold, cold tears

~~
George J. Dance

from Logos, and 

other logoi, 2021

George J. Dance biography

"November" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 

The Thrush / Edward Thomas

The Thrush

When Winter's ahead,
What can you read in November
That you read in April
When Winter's dead?

I hear the thrush, and I see
Him alone at the end of the lane
Near the bare poplar's tip,
Singing continuously.

Is it more that you know
Than that, even as in April,
So in November,
Winter is gone that must go?

Or is all your lore
Not to call November November,
And April April,
And Winter Winter — no more?

But I know the months all,
And their sweet names, April,
May and June and October,
As you call and call

I must remember
What died into April
And consider what will be born
Of a fair November;

And April I love for what
It was born of, and November
For what it will die in,
What they are and what they are not,

While you love what is kind,
What you can sing in
And love and forget in
All that's ahead and behind.

~~
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
from Poems, 1917.

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Thomas biography

"The Thrush" read by B W Thornton.

See also: "On a Thrush Singing in Autumn," by Lewis Morris

November's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for November 2024:

For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon

[...]
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
[...]

(read by Laurence Fox)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/11/for-fallen-lawrence-binyon.html

Penny's Top 20 / October 2024

                                          

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in October 2024:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  3.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  4.  October, George J. Dance

  5.  On a Thrush Singing in Autumn, Lewis Morris

  6.  Autumn's Orchestra, Pauline Johnson
  7.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

  8.  A Remembrance of Autumn, Adelaide Procter
  9.  Logos, George J. Dance

10.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

11.  October, Louise Driscoll
12.  Sagacity, William Rose Benét

13.  October, Edwin Arnold 

14.  October, Dinah Maria Craik

15.  September, VizantOr*

16.  The March, J.C. Squire

17.  4 autumn American Haiku, Jack Kerouac

18.  The Splendor of the Days, Jean Blewett
19.  Mowing, Robert Frost

20. Autumn, Francis Ledwidge

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

The March / J.C. Squire

The March

I heard a voice that cried, "Make way for those who died!"
And all the coloured crowd like ghosts at morning fled;
And down the waiting road, rank after rank there strode,
In mute and measured march a hundred thousand dead.

A hundred thousand dead, with firm and noiseless tread,
All shadowy-grey yet solid, with faces grey and ghast,
And by the house they went, and all their brows were bent
Straight forward; and they passed, and passed, and passed, and passed.

But O there came a place, and O there came a face,
That clenched my heart to see it, and sudden turned my way;
And in the Face that turned I saw two eyes that burned,
Never-forgotten eyes, and they had things to say.

Like desolate stars they shone one moment, and were gone,
And I sank down and put my arms across my head,
And felt them moving past, nor looked to see the last,
In steady silent march, our hundred thousand dead.

~~
J.C. Squire (1884-1958)
from Poems: First series, 1918

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

J.C. Squire biography

Samuel J. Hood Studio, Australian troops marching in Sydney, 1915. Wikimedia Commons.

See also: "The March of the Dead," by Robert Service

October / Dinah Maria Craik

October

It is no joy to me to sit
    On dreamy summer eves,
When silently the timid moon
    Kisses the sleeping leaves,
And all things through the fair hushed earth
    Love, rest – but nothing grieves.
Better I like old Autumn
    With his hair tossed to and fro,
Firm striding o'er the stubble fields
    When the equinoctials blow.

When shrinkingly the sun creeps up
    Through misty mornings cold,
And Robin on the orchard hedge
    Sings cheerily and bold,
While the frosted plum
    Drops downward on the mould;–
And as he passes, Autumn
    Into earth's lap does throw
Brown apples gay in a game of play,
    As the equinoctials blow.

When the spent year its carol sinks
    Into a humble psalm,
Asks no more for the pleasure draught,
    But for the cup of balm,
And all its storms and sunshine bursts
    Controls to one brave calm,–
Then step by step walks Autumn,
    With steady eyes that show
Nor grief nor fear, to the death of the year,
    While the equinoctials blow.

~~
Dinah Maria Craik (1826-1887)

from Thirty Years: Being poems new and old, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Dinah Maria Craik biography

Enoch Luong, Autumn Robin (Canada), October 2022. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A Remembrance of Autumn / Adelaide Procter

 

A Remembrance of Autumn

Nothing stirs the sunny silence,
    Save the drowsy humming of the bees
        Round the rich ripe peaches on the wall,
    And the south wind sighing in the trees,
        And the dead leaves rustling as they fall:
    While the swallows, one by one, are gathering
        All impatient to be on the wing,
    And to wander from us seeking
                Their beloved spring!

Cloudless rise the azure heavens!
    Only vaporous wreaths of snowy white
        Nestle in the grey hill's rugged side;
    And the golden woods are bathed in light,
        Dying if they must, with kingly pride:
    While the swallows, in the blue air wheeling,
        Circle now an eager, fluttering band, 

    Ready to depart and leave us
                For a brighter land!

But a voice is sounding sadly,
    Telling of a glory that has been;
        Of a day that faded all too fast:
    See afar through the blue air serene,
        Where the swallows wing their way at last,
    And our hearts perchance as sadly wandering,
        Vainly seeking for a long-lost day,
    While we watch the far-off swallows,
                Flee with them away!

~~
Adelaide Procter (1825-1864)

from Legends and Lyrics: Second series, 1861

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Adelaide Procter biography 

Oxana Maher, Walled Garden in Autumn, 2020. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The Splendor of the Days / Jean Blewett

The Splendor of the Days

Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness – sweeter, shriller – one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!
See it fleeing through the valley with the bold wind in its wake!
            Mark the warm October haze!
            Mark the splendor of the days!
And the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!

See the bare hills turn their furrows to the shine and to the glow;
If you listen you can hear it, hear a murmur soft and low —
"We are naked," so the fields say, "stripped of all our golden dress."
"Heed it not," October answers, "for I love ye none the less.
            Share my beauty and my cheer
            While we rest together here,
In these sun-filled days of languor, in these late days of the year."

All the splendor of the summer, all the springtime's light and grace,
All the riches of the harvest, crown her head and light her face;
And the wind goes sighing, sighing, as if loath to let her pass,
While the crickets sing exultant in the lean and withered grass.
            O the warm October haze!
            O the splendor of the days!
O the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!

~~
Jean Blewett (1872-1954)
from The Cornflower, and other poems, 1906

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

Jean Blewett biography

James Ryen, Autumn Haze, 2014. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October / George J. Dance

October

How soon leaves fall:
scarlet, canary, brown
trampled alike on the ground.

~~
George J. Dance

from Logos, and other logoi, 2021

Eric Sonstroem, Fallen Leaves in the Rain, 2020. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"October" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

George J. Dance biography

October / Louise Driscoll

October

When my hills stand ablaze with gold and red,
    And I can hear the harsh-voiced leader cry
    As wild geese, like a necklace on the sky,
Are seen for a brief moment overhead,
Then I remember what my lover said.
    No bird of Spring, however joyously
    Singing arpeggios on a lilac tree,
Can speak to me so plainly of the dead.
    October, bringing gaudy mysteries,
With smell of burning leaves and dripping sound
As frost freed nuts come dropping to the ground,
    With late, red apples glowing on the trees
    Like lanterns at some feast of memories,
The spell of death and silence has unbound.

~~
Louise Driscoll (1875-1957)
from The Garden of the West, 1922

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

Louise Driscoll biography

John S. Turner, A skein of geese flying above Tesco, Broughton Park (detail).

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. 

On a Thrush Singing in Autumn / Lewis Morris

On a Thrush Singing in Autumn

Sweet singer of the Spring, when the new world
Was fill’d with song and bloom, and the fresh year
Tripp’d, like a lamb playful and void of fear,
Through daisied grass and young leaves scarce unfurl’d,
Where is thy liquid voice
That all day would rejoice?
Where now thy sweet and homely call,
Which from grey dawn to evening’s chilling fall
Would echo from thin copse and tassell’d brake,
For homely duty tuned and love’s sweet sake?

The spring-tide pass’d, high summer soon should come.
The woods grew thick, the meads a deeper hue;
The puipy summer growths swell’d, lush and tall;
The sharp scythes swept at daybreak through the dew.
Thou didst not heed at all,
Thy prodigal voice grew dumb;
No more with song mightst thou beguile,
— She sitting on her speckled eggs the while —
Thy mate’s long vigil as the slow days went,
Solacing her with lays of measureless content.

Nay, nay, thy voice was Duty’s, nor would dare
Sing were Love fled, though still the world were fair;
The summer wax’d and waned, the nights grew cold,
The sheep were thick within the wattled fold,
The woods began to moan,
Dumb wert thou and alone;
Yet now, when leaves are sere, thy ancient note
Comes low and halting from thy doubtful throat.
Oh, lonely loveless voice! what dost thou here
In the deep silence of the fading year?

Wood Thrush. From 

Chester A. Reed,

The Bird Book, 1915.

Wikimedia Commons.

Thus do I read the answer of thy song:
‘I sang when winds blew chilly all day long;
I sang because hope came and joy was near,
I sang a little while, I made good cheer;
In summer’s cloudless day
My music died away;
But now the hope and glory of the year
Are dead and gone, a little while I sing
Songs of regret for days no longer here,
And touched with presage of the far-off Spring.’

Is this the meaning of thy note, fair bird?
Or do we read into thy simple brain
Echoes of thoughts which human hearts have stirred,
High-soaring joy and melancholy pain?
Nay, nay, that lingering note
Belated from thy throat —
‘Regret,’ is what it sings, ‘regret, regret!
The dear days pass, but are not wholly gone.
In praise of those I let my song go on;
’Tis sweeter to remember than forget.’

~~
Lewis Morris (1833-1907)
from Songs of Britain, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lewis Morris biography

See also: "The Thrush" by Edward Thomas

October / Edwin Arnold

October

A bold brunette she is, radiant with mirth,
    Who comes a-tripping over corn-fields cropped;
    Fruits and blown roses, from her full arms dropped,
Carpet her feet along the gladdened earth;

Around her brow glitters a careless crown
    Of bronzed oak, and apple-leaves, and vine;
    And russet-nuts and country berries twine
About her gleaming shoulders and loose gown.

Like grapes at vintage, where the ripe wine glows,
    Glows so her sweet cheek, summer-touched but fair;
    And, like grape-tendrils, all her wealth of hair,
Gold on a ground of brown, nods as she goes:

Grapes too, a-spirt, her brimming fingers bear,
    A dainty winepress, pouring wet and warm
    The crimson river over wrist and arm,
And on her lips — adding no crimson there!

Ah! golden autumn hours — fly not so fast!
    Let the sweet Lady long with us delay;
    The sunset makes the sun so wished-for, — stay!
Of three fair sisters — loveliest and the last!

But after laughter ever follows grief,
    And Pleasure's sunshine brings its shadow Pain;
    Even now begins the dreary time again.
The first dull patter of the first dead leaf.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edwin Arnold biography

ТиЈок, Zhiva - Old Slavic Goddess of Autumn, 2024. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October:

Autumn's Orchestra, by Pauline Johnson

[...]
There is a lonely minor chord that sings
Faintly and far along the forest ways,
When the firs finger faintly on the strings
Of that rare violin the night wind plays
[...]

(Ingrid Stölzel: To One Beyond Seas [2018]. Live ensemble performance.)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2010/09/autumns-orchestra-e-pauline-johnson.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2024

                                         

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2024:

  1.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  2.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  3.  September, VizantOr*

  4.  Mowing, Robert Frost

  5.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  6.  Fair Summer Droops, Thomas Nashe
  7.  September, Edwin Arnold

  8.  August, George J. Dance
  9.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

10.  Tell me not here, it needs not saying, A.E. Housman

11.  The Bed of Old John Zeller, Wallace Stevens
12.  Vacation End, Leslie Pinckney Hill

13.  Autumn, Francis Ledwidge

14.  Autumnal Day, Rainer Maria Rilke

15.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

16.  Logos, George J. Dance

17.  August, Edmund Spenser

18.  Canadian Autumn Tints, J.D. Edgar
19.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

20. A Dirge, Christina Rossetti

Source: Blogger, "Stats"  

Autumn / Francis Ledwidge

Autumn

Now leafy winds are blowing cold,
And South by West the sun goes down,
A quiet huddles up the fold
In sheltered corners of the brown.

Like scattered fire the wild fruit strews
The ground beneath the blowing tree,
And there the busy squirrel hews
His deep and secret granary.

And when the night comes starry clear,
The lonely quail complains beside
The glistening waters on the mere
Where widowed Beauties yet abide.

And I, too, make my own complaint
Upon a reed I plucked in June,
And love to hear it echoed faint
Upon another heart in tune.

~~
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
from Last Songs, 1918

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

Francis Ledwidge biography

"Autumn" read by Audiobook Passion. Courtesy Audiobook Passion.

Canadian Autumn Tints / J.D Edgar

Canadian Autumn Tints

We wandered off together,
    We walked in dreamful ease,
In mellow autumn weather,
    Past autumn-tinted trees;
The breath of soft September
    Left fragrance in the air,
And well do I remember,
    I thought you true as fair.

The maples' deep carnations,
    The beeches' silv'ry sheen,
Hid nature's sad mutations,
    And I forgot the green:
Forgot the green of summer,
    The buds of early spring,
And gave the latest comer
    My false heart's offering.

O painted autumn roses!
    O dying autumn leaves!
Your beauty fades and closes,
    That gaudy hue deceives:
Like clouds that gather golden
    Around the setting sun,
Your glories are beholden
    Just ere the day is done.

Or, like th' electric flushes
    That fire Canadian skies,
Your bright and changeful blushes
    In gold and crimson rise.
But health has long departed
    From all that hectic glare;
And love sees, broken-hearted,
    The fate that's pictured there.

The brush that paints so brightly
    No mortal artist wields;
He touches all things lightly,
    But sweeps the broadest fields.
The fairest flowers are chosen
    To wither at his breath;
The hand is cold and frozen
    That paints those hues of death.

We wandered back together,
    With hearts but ill at ease,
In mellow autumn weather,
    Past autumn-tinted trees;
The breath of soft September
    Left fragrance in the air,
And well we both remember
    The love that ended there.

~~
J.D. Edgar (1841-1899)
from This Canada of Ours, and other poems, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J.D.Edgar biography

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Autumn Woods, 1886. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Autumnal Day / Rainer Maria Rilke

Autumnal Day

Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.

Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
Give to them two more burning days and press
The last sweetness into the heavy wine.

He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
Who is alone will now remain alone;
He will awake, will read, will letters write
Through the long day and in the lonely night;
And restless, solitary, he will rove 

Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.

~~
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
(translated by Jessie Lamont)
from Poems, 1918

Rainer Maria Rilke biography

Day in Autumn (translated by Mary Kinzie), read by Ben Smith. Courtesy Ben Reads Poetry.

Mowing / Robert Frost

Mowing

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound —
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from A Boy's Will, 1915

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

Robert Frost biography

"Mowing" read by Robert Frost. Courtesy Zsuzsanna Uhlik.

September / VizantOr*

September

Can I touch you in autumn, 

beautiful soft-skinned one 

fragrant with heady wishes? 

 ~~ 

VizantOr* 

(translated by George J. Dance) 

from Logos and Other Logoi, 2021

Emile Friant (1863-1932), The Lovers (Autumn Evening), 1888. Wikimedia Commons.

September / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

September

The harvest-moon stands on the sea,
    Her golden rim's adrip;
She lights the sheaves on many a lea,
    The sails on many a ship;
Glitter, sweet Queen! upon the spray,
    And glimmer on the heather;
Right fair thy ray to gild the way
    Where lovers walk together.

The red wheat rustles, and the vines
    Are purple to the foot;
And true-love, waiting patient, wins
    Its blessed time of fruit:
Lamp of all lovers, Lady-moon!
    Light these ripe lips together
Which reap alone a harvest sown
    Long ere September weather.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edwin Arnold biography

Archie 2909, Full Moon, August 2021. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.