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Sunday, April 28, 2024

I Met the Rain / Louise Driscoll


I Met the Rain

I met the rain today in an open place,
    The young rain, adventuring, she danced as she came along.
Her dress was all of silver, she had a smiling face,
    And she sang to the dusty trees, a little song.

The dusty trees were glad and they clapped their hands.
    I saw a tired flower turn and smile.
At the bend of a little path where a linden stands,
    I watched the rain at play for a little while.

Her feet were small and they trod on the grass and bent it.
    She carried a scarf of mist that brushed my cheek.
She shook an odor out on the air to scent it,
    She bent to the barberries and I heard her speak.

I saw the rain go by like a girl with laughter,
    But I will never tell you the word she said.
That you must learn yourself and forever after
    Know how the leaves and grass are comforted.

I stood at a bend in the path and the rain went by me.
    I could see, like a skein of silk, her shining hair,
She turned with a little smile to satisfy me,
    For all the while she knew that I was there.

~~
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

DALL-E, "Kounu – Guardian Goddess of the Northern Direction & Lady of the Northern
 Mountains – Giver of Good Rainfall," 2024 (detail). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. 

Saturday, April 27, 2024

April Rain / Lew Sarett


April Rain

Through a temperamental April night
I tossed upon my attic bed,
And gave myself to the rattle of rains
    On the gable overhead.

Rains of all moods slipped by: gray rains
That walked the eaves on panther paws;
Stony blue rains that scraped the tin
    With the sound of a grizzly's claws.

Whimpering rains that tried the latch
And fumbled at each window-hook,
Or slid with the belly of a snake
    Into each cranny and nook.

High-stepping rains like prancing steeds;
Rains that went galloping down the roof,
That shook the earth like buffalo-herds
    With thunder of flinty hoof.

The torrent ceased; and something dark
Depressed me, something in the dregs
Of April dripping from the eaves
    Into the rain-water kegs.

So hollow the sullen drop on drop,
So melancholy in the gloom,
I lit a candle and strove to drive
    The shadows from the room.

~~
Lew Sarett (1888-1954)
from Collected Poems, 1941

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

Lew Sarett biography

ako-aleko, "Night Rain," April 2011. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

An April Rain Song / Langston Hughes


An April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head
With silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
With its pitty-pat.
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep tune
On our roof at night,
And I love the rain.

~~
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
from The Brownies' Book, April 1921

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

Langston Hughes biography

"An April Rain Song" read by Henry Kaiser. Courtesy National Botanical Garden.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

April / Edwin Arnold


from The Twelve Months

April

Blossom of the almond-trees,
April's gift to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling!—
Coming when no flow'rets dare
Trust the cruel outer air;
When the royal king-cup bold
Will not don his coat of gold;
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps its silver for the May;—
Coming when no flow'rets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.
Almond blossom, sent to teach us
That the spring-days soon will reach us,
Lest, with longing over-tried,
We die as the violets died.
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson 'broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen;
Ah! when wintry winds are swinging
All thy red bells into ringing,
With a bee in every bell,
Almond bloom, we greet thee well!

~~
Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)
from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]


3268zauber, Almond Blossoms, April 2009. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Sea-Fever / John Masefield


Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted 
    knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

~~
John Masefield (1878-1967)
from
Salt-Water Ballads, 1902

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

John Masefield biography
About "Sea-Fever"

"Sea-Fever" read by Ian Batchelor. Courtesy LiveCanonPoetry.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

Song at Parting / Francis Sherman


Song at Parting

And after many days (for I shall keep
    These old things unforgotten, nevertheless!)
    My lids at last, feeling thy faint caress,
Shall open, April, to the wooded sweep
Of Northern hills; and my slow blood shall leap
    And surge, for joy and very wantonness —
    Like Northern waters when thy feet possess
The valleys, and the green year wakes from sleep.

That morn the drowsy South, as we go forth
    (Unseen thy hand in mine; I, seen of all)
        Will marvel that I seek the outmost quay,—
The while, gray leagues away, a new-born North
    Harkens with wonder to thy rapturous call
        For some old lover down across the sea.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
from Two Songs at Parting, 1899

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

Francis Sherman biography

J.M.W. Turner (1785-1851), The Parting of Hero and Leander. Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Darkness / George Gordon, Lord Byron


Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went — and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires — and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings — the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire — but hour by hour
They fell and faded — and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash — and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought — and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails — men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress — he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects — saw, and shriek'd, and died —
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless —
A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge —
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them — She was the Universe.

~~
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
from The Prisoner of Chillon, and other poems, 1816

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lord Byron biography

"Darkness" read by Tom O'Bedlam. Courtesy Spoken Verse.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer /
Walt Whitman


When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure 
    them;
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much 
    applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

~~
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
from Drum-taps, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Walt Whitman biography

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" read by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

April's featured poem

  

The Penny Blog's featured poem for April 2024:

April in the Hills, by Archibald Lampman

To-day the world is wide and fair
With sunny fields of lucid air,
And waters dancing everywhere;
    The snow is almost gone
[...]

(read by Mckenzie Nicole Greenwood)

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Penny's Top 20 / March 2024

                                  

Penny's Top 20

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


  1.  Skating, William Wordsworth
  2.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett
  3.  March Sunset, Hilda Conkling
  4.  St. Patrick's Day, Jean Blewett
  5.  Winter Streams, Bliss Carman
  6.  Barley Feed, AE Reiff
  7.  March, Patrick Kavanagh
  8.  February, George J. Dance
  9.  August, Edmund Spenser
10.  March, Edwin Arnold

11.  Amarant, AE Reiff
12.  March: An ode, A.C. Swinburne 
13.  The World's Body, AE Reiff
14.  The Lake Isle of Innisfree, W.B. Yeats
15.  Woods in Winter, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
17.  The Spring of the Year, Allan Cunningham
18.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon
19.  Easter, Joyce Kilmer
20. Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

Source: Blogger, "Stats"