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.

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

XL

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
    What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
    Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
    And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle,
    The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
    In leafy dells alone;
And traveller's joy beguiles in autumn
    Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses
    The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
    Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
    And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,
    The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
    Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
    Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,
    Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow
    And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
    If they are mine or no.

~~

A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

from Last Poems, 1922

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

A.E. Housman biography

"Tell me not here, it needs not saying," read by Mohammed. Courtesy Amunology.

Vacation End / Leslie Pinckney Hill

Vacation End

From the charm of radiant faces,
From the days we took to dream,
From the joy of open spaces,
From the mountain and the stream,
Bronzed of sunlight, nerves a-tingle,
Keen of limb and clear of head,
Speed we back again to mingle
In the battle for our bread.
Now again the stern commanding
Of the chosen task is heard,
And the tyrant, care, is standing
Arbiter of deed and word.
But the radiance is not ended,
And the joy, whate’er the cost,
Which those fleeting days attended
Never can be wholly lost.
For we bring to waiting duty,
To the labor and the strife,
Something of the sense of beauty,
And a fairer view of life.

~~

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 

Nico Crisafulli, Empty Carnival, 2011 (detail). CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

September's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for September:

Fair Summer Droops, by Thomas Nashe

Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore,
So fair a summer look for nevermore:
All good things vanish less than in a day,
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.
[...]

(read by Richard Mitchley)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/09/fair-summer-droops.html

Penny's Top 20 / August 2024

                                       

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

  2.  Logos, George J. Dance

  3.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  4.  The Beach in August, Weldon Kees

  5.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  6.  August, George J. Dance
  7.  Evening, Katherine Hale

  8.  August Moon, J.C. Squire
  9.  A Summer Night, Matthew Arnold

10.  Long Island Sound, Emma Lazarus

11.  August Child, Marion Strobel
12.  The Grotto, Barry Cornwall

13.  August, Edwin Arnold

14.  The Summer Shower, Thomas Buchanan Read

15.  A Summer Morning, George Henry Boker

16.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

17.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance

18.  Canada, Pauline Johnson
19.  At one time, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

20. The Succession of the Four Sweet Months, Robert Herrick

Source: Blogger, "Stats"