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 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

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"