Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, And going to the office in the train.
~~
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
from War Poems, 1919
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,
Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground
And from the first grey wakening we have found
No refuge from the skirmishing fine rain
And the wind that made the canvas heave and flap
And the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.
All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,
Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer stream
Too light to stir the acorns that suddenly
Snatched from their cups by the wild south-westerly
Pattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.
And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,
Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,
Reading the Sunday papers – I saw a fox
And mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; –
And we talked of girls and dropping bombs on Rome,
And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities
Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees:
Yet thought softly, morosely of them, and as indifferently
As of ourselves or those whom we
For years have loved, and will again
Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rain
Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.
And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart
Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday
Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play,
Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me
By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree
To the Shoulder o’ Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded long
On death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.
~~
Alun Lewis (1915-1944)
from Raiders' Dawn, and other poems, 1941
[Poetry is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]
There's nothing like the sun as the year dies,
Kind as it can be, this world being made so,
To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,
To all things that it touches except snow,
Whether on mountain side or street of town.
The south wall warms me: November has begun,
Yet never shone the sun as fair as now
While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough
With spangles of the morning's storm drop down
Because the starling shakes it, whistling what
Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot
That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,
Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,
Or January's, or February's, great days:
And August, September, October, and December
Have equal days, all different from November.
No day of any month but I have said –
Or, if I could live long enough, should say –
'There's nothing like the sun that shines today.'
There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.
I speak your name in alien ways, while yet
November smiles from under lashes wet.
In the November light I see you stand
Who love the fading woods and withered land
[...]
"Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?"
Silence, followed by a click and hum.
Slamming down, her lower arm goes numb.
She has to get outside; she needs some air.
The leaden sky leaks. Trees are gaunt and bare.
She walks – then runs – but every street has some
Eyes fondling her legs, her breasts, her bum,
And running filthy glances through her hair.
She's reached her block now – finally she nears
Her home, runs up the walk – inside once more,
Panting, trying to calm her breath and fears.
She's sure that bedroom door was closed before,
And weren't the lights on? What's that noise she hears?
How could she forget to lock the door?
Next, for October, to some shelter'd coign Flouting the winds I'll hope to find you slunk: Though in bird-shooting (lest all sport be sunk),
Your foot still press the turf, the horse your groin.
At night with sweethearts in the dance you'll join, And drink the blessed must, and get quite drunk. There's no such life for any human trunk;
And that's a truth that rings like golden coin!
Then, out of bed again when morning's come, Let your hands drench your face refreshingly, And take your physic roast, with flask and knife.
Sounder and snugger you shall feel at home Than lake-fish, river-fish, or fish at sea, Inheriting the cream of Christian life.
~~ Folgore da San Geminiano (?1270-1332?) translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) from The Early Italian Poets, 1861
I have worn so many coats
Always changing through the years
Some fit very well and warm
Giving comfort for a time
Other ones, threadbare and cold
Woven with such brittle fibers
From the mills of want and angst,
Pockets torn
With holes and tattered
Where fortunes and good will
Must have surely fallen through
I outgrew some, along the way,
Left them lying there
Pockets full of naive trust,
For those with childlike faith
Who wore each one with beauty,
In traditions of their creeds
I wore a coat of innocence,
In a place so long ago,
Where angels held their guard
Where ice cold rain fell hard
Into gentle summer nights
I wear a coat these days
A perfect fit and trim
A patchwork stitched
Of faded cloth, stained and ripped
From passing years
The pockets filled
With golden Hope, sweet
Memories and tears
When I was a little fellow, long ago, The season of all seasons seemed to me The Summer's afterglow and fantasy —
The red October of Ontario:
To ramble unrestrain'd where maples grow Thick-set with butternut and hickory, And be the while companion'd airily
By elfin things a child alone may know!
And how with mugs of cider, sweet and mellow, And block and hammer for the gather'd store Of toothsome nuts, we'd lie around before
The fire at nights, and hear the old folks tell o' Red Indians and bears, and the Yankee war —
Long ago, when I was a little fellow!
~~
Tom MacInnes (1867-1951)
from In Amber Lands, 1910
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Spring whistled a happy tune ... summer sang. Autumn's song being sung and winter's song Yet to come ... a cold hard song ... far too long, Winter's known song ... a frosty frigid ... pang!
The end of summer comes in disbelief: Autumnal apples fall far from the trees; Sweet honey stolen from the honeybees; Luscious fruit with sweetness lends some relief.
The gifts of spring and summer ... love bestowed. Gratitude for the fruits of the season – Gratitude for plentiful pleasing reason. From the summer season much bounty flowed.
Seen on display, the farmer's market showed The fresh fruits of love's organic labor. A just picked garden carrot ... to savor! To buy artisanal produce much is owed.
Spring whistled a happy tune ... summer sang. Autumn's song being sung and winter's song Yet to come ... a cold hard song ... far too long, Winter's known song ... a frosty frigid ... pang!
Cold hard fact: As fleeting pleasures fade in disbelief ... Suspension of disbelief assuages grief.
The long, pure light, that brings To earth her perfect crown of bliss,
Wanes slow, — the thoughtful drooping of the grain,
And the faint breath of the earth-loving things Say this.
Oft when the dews at night Clasp the cool shadows, all in vain,
I look along the meadows, level, dark,
To see the firefly lift her tender light Again.
From the thick-woven shade, Where, on the red-cupped moss, to-day,
A crimson ray alit, the bluebird sends
One melancholy note up the brown glade, This way.
Last night, I saw an eft Crawl to the worm's forsaken bier,
To die there, as I think, — beetle nor bee,
Nor the ephemera's ethereal weft Sport here.
Yet great has been life's zest. Almost how the grass grows, I know,
And the ant sleeps; the busy summer long,
I have kept the secret of the ground-bird's nest Below.
But sweeter my employ In some still hours. I seem to live
Too near the beating of earth's mighty heart,
Not to have learned in part how she can joy And grieve!
'Twas on a night last June, Into the clear, bold sky,
The little stars stole each with separate thrill,
And the mossed fir-top woke its mystic rune Close by.
Upon yon westering slope, Two glorious human shapes there stood, Rosy with twilight, listening to my song:
I knew I sang to them of love and hope, Life's good.
The little stars' soft rays Again thrill through their realm of peace;
One shadow haunts the slope; — a song I sing
To match the broken music of her days, Then cease.
On September 21, 2025, Penny's Poetry Blog received its millionth page view: a goal we had been hoping and working for since our founding more than 15 years ago. For years it seemed that we would never reach the magic 1,000,000. To put that figure into perspective: six years ago – nine years after our beginning – we still had less than 350,000 views in total. In contrast, we received almost that many views (318,000) in the last 12 months alone.
What changed? The short answer is that PPB poetry is increasingly showing up on google searches. But that did not happen by itself or overnight. It took years, and thousands of page views, to reach that point; years of finding, blogging, and promoting poems until we became big enough to be noticed. While we are grateful for the resulting flood of new readers, most of all we appreciate those readers who have supported us since the beginning. We hope that all of our readers, both old and new, stay with us as we pursue our next 1,000,000 views.
And in September, O what keen delight! Falcons and astors, merlins, sparrowhawks: Decoy-birds that shall lure your game in flocks;
And hounds with bells; and gauntlets stout and tight;
Wide pouches; crossbows shooting out of sight; Arblasts and javelins; balls and ball-cases; All birds the best to fly at; moulting these,
Those rear'd by hand; with finches mean and slight;
And for their chase, all birds the best to fly; And each to each of you be lavish still In gifts; and robbery find no gainsa}ang;
And if you meet with travellers going by. Their purses from your purse's flow shall fill; And avarice be the only outcast thing.
~~ Folgore da San Geminiano (?1270-1332?) translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) from The Early Italian Poets, 1861
The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires, Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows Of clematis, through which September goes,
Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,
Are flanked by hotter hues: by tawny fires Of acrid marigolds,--that light long rows Of lamps,--and salvias, red as day's red close,--
That torches seem,--by which the Month attires
Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen, Towering imperial in her two-fold crown Of harvest and of vintage; all her form
Majestic gold and purple: in her mien The might of motherhood; her baby brown, Abundance, high on one exultant arm.
~~
Madison Cawein (1865-1914) from Weeds by the Wall, 1901
A bud has burst on the upper bough
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
I know where the pale green grasses show
By a tiny runnel, off the way,
And the earth is wet.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Not yet.”)
I nabbed the fly in a briar rose
(The linnet to-day in my heart did sing);
Last night, my head tucked under my wing,
I dreamed of a green moon-moth that glows
Thro’ ferns of June.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “So soon?”)
Good-bye, for the pretty leaves are down
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
The last gold bit of upland’s mown,
And most of summer has blown away
Thro’ the garden gate.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Too late.”)
~~ Trumbull Stickney (1874-1904) from Dramatic Verses, 1902
There was the summer. There Warm hours of leaf-lipped song, And dripping amber sweat. O sweet to see
The great trees condescend to cast a pearl
Down to the myrtles; and the proud leaves curl In ecstasy.
Fruit of a quest, despair. Smart of a sullen wrong. Where may they hide them yet? One hour, yet one,
To find the mossgod lurking in his nest,
To see the naiads' floating hair, caressed By fragrant sun-
Beams. Softly lulled the eves The song-tired birds to sleep, That other things might tell Their secrecies.
The beetle humming neath the fallen leaves.
Deep in what hollow do the stern gods keep
Their bitter silence? By what listening well Where holy trees,
Song-set, unfurl eternally the sheen Of restless green?
~~
John Gray (1866-1934)
from Silverpoints, 1893
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the Unites States, and the European Union]
But why is Nature at such heavy pause,
And the earth slowly ceasing to revolve?
Only the lapping tides abide their laws,
And very softly on the sand dissolve.
The fruit is gathered – not an apple drops:
In little mists above the garden bed
The petals of the last gold dahlia shed;
The spider central 'mid his wreathed dewdrops!
Oh still, oh quiet!– and no issue found;
No laying up to rest of callow things,
Or scale, or sheaf, or tissue of armed wings:
Open the tilth, open the fallow ground!
The fragrance of the air that has no home
Spreads vague and dissolute, nor cares to roam.
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths — and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
~~ Robert Frost (1874-1963) from New Hampshire, 1923 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Summer's heat drags on, slow rolling days
beneath the sun
Holding on for autumn's chill
The nights feel cool, there is still
a chance to find a place to stay
Some where deep in, sweet memories
of childhood dreams
With endless skies, carefree hills
Innocence held there until
we wake out of our reverie
Feel the fall wind chill, gray rolling clouds
across the sun
Leaves that change and change will leave
things behind we once believed
Dreams our youthful faith allowed
Fade slow in winter, frost on glass
in morning sun
Still, we live in paradise
Heaven lies beneath the skies
In reckless love while ages pass
For August, be your dwelling thirty towers Within an Alpine valley mountainous, Where never the sea-wind may vex your house,
But clear life separate, like a star, be yours.
There horses shall wait saddled at all hours, That ye may mount at morning or at eve: On each hand either ridge ye shall perceive,
A mile apart, which soon a good beast scours.
So alway, drawing homewards, ye shall tread Your valley parted by a rivulet Which day and night shall flow sedate and smooth.
There all through noon ye may possess the shade, And there your open purses shall entreat The best of Tuscan cheer to feed your youth.
~~ Folgore da San Geminiano (?1270-1332?) translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) from The Early Italian Poets, 1861
Fragrant odor of the dawn,
Sweet incense to waking souls,
While the fresh dew spreads the lawn,
And your spirit day controls,
Let me, underneath this tree
Standing, be possessed of thee.
See the robin in a dream
Poising on a grassy bank;
Hear, beneath, the singing stream,
In a meadow dewy-dank;
See the mother-pearly tips
Of the pink-white sorrel's lips.
Now adown the hilly slope
Like a father steps the sun,
And the pretty blossoms ope
Wide their eyelids, one by one;
And they seem to stir and say
Lisped prayers unto the day.
He who sleeps at dawn is dead
To more wonders than he knows;
Let me forth and early tread
Where the sunlit water flows,
Where the elm at dewy dawn
Flings his shadow down the lawn.
Let me feel, and yet be still;
Let me take, and yet not give;
Drink, till I have drunk my fill;
Then anew go forth and live.
Man has little honeyed pleasure
Unmixed in his manhood's measure.
~~
James Herbert Morse (1841-1923)
from Summer Haven Songs, 1886
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace,
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
~~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1954) from Deaths and Entrances, 1946
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]
Now the trees rest: the moon hath taught them sleep.
Like drowsy wings of bats are all their leaves,
Clinging together. Girls at ease who fold
Fair hands upon white necks and thro' dusk fields
Walk all content,— of them the trees have taken
Their way of evening rest; the yellow moon
With her pale gold hath lit their dreams that lisp
On the wind's murmurous lips. And low beyond
Burn those bright lamps beneath the moon more bright,
Lamps that but flash and sparkle and light not
The inward eye and musing thought, nor reach
Where, poplar-like, that tall-built campanile
Lifts to the neighbouring moon her head and feels
The pale gold like an ocean laving her.
~~
John Freeman (1880-1929)
from Fifty Poems, 1911
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
From the upland hidden, Where the hill is sunny Tawny like pure honey In the August heat,
Memories float unbidden Where the thicket serries Fragrant with ripe berries And the milk-weed sweet.
Like a prayer-mat holy Are the patterned mosses Which the twin-flower crosses With her flowerless vine;
In fragile melancholy The pallid ghost flowers hover As if to guard and cover The shadow of a shrine.
Where the pine-linnet lingered The pale water searches, The roots of gleaming birches Draw silver from the lake; The ripples, liquid-fingered, Plucking the root-layers, Fairy like lute players Lulling music make.
O to lie here brooding Where the pine-tree column Rises dark and solemn To the airy lair,
Where, the day eluding, Night is couched dream laden, Like a deep witch-maiden Hidden in her hair.
In filmy evanescence Wraithlike scents assemble, Then dissolve and tremble A little until they die;
Spirits of the florescence Where the bees searched and tarried Till the blossoms all were married In the days before July.
Light has lost its splendour, Light refined and sifted, Cool light and dream drifted Ventures even where,
(Seeping silver tender) In the dim recesses, Trembling mid her tresses, Hides the maiden hair.
Covered with the shy-light, Filling in the hushes, Slide the tawny thrushes Calling to their broods,
Hoarding till the twilight The song that made for noon-days Of the amorous June days Preludes and interludes.
The joy that I am feeling Is there something in it Unlike the warble the linnet Phrases and intones?
Or is a like thought stealing With a rapture fine, free Through the happy pine tree Ripening her cones?
In some high existence In another planet Where their poets cannot Know our birds and flowers,
Does the same persistence Give the dreams they issue Something like the tissue Of these dreams of ours?
O to lie athinking — Moods and whims! I fancy Only necromancy Could the web unroll, Only somehow linking Beauties that meet and mingle In this quiet dingle With the beauty of the whole.
~~ Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) from Lundy's Lane, and other poems, 1916
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
O gold is the West and gold the river-waters
Washing past the sides of my yellow birch canoe,
Gold are the great drops that fall from my paddle,
The far-off hills cry a golden word of you.
I can almost see you! Where its own shadow
Creeps down the hill’s side, gradual and slow.
There you stand waiting; the goldenrod and thistle
Glad of you beside them — the fairest thing they know.
Down the worn foot-path, the tufted pines behind you,
Grey sheep between,— unfrightened as you pass;
Swift through the sun-glow, I to my loved one
Come, striving hard against the long trailing grass.
Soon shall I ground on the shining gravel-reaches:
Through the thick alders you will break your way:
Then your hand in mine, and our path is on the waters,—
For us the long shadows and the end of day.
Whither shall we go? See, over to the westward,
An hour of precious gold standeth still for you and me;
Still gleams the grain, all yellow on the uplands;
West is it, or East, O Love that you would be?
West now, or East? For, underneath the moonrise,
Also it is fair; and where the reeds are tall,
And the only little noise is the sound of quiet waters,
Heavy, like the rain, we shall hear the duck-oats fall.
And perhaps we shall see, rising slowly from the driftwood,
A lone crane go over to its inland nest:
Or a dark line of ducks will come in across the islands
And sail overhead to the marshes of the west.
Now a little wind rises up for our returning;
Silver grows the East as the West grows grey;
Shadows on the waters, shaded are the meadows,
The firs on the hillside — naught so dark as they.
Yet we have known the light!— Was ever such an August?
Your hand leaves mine; and the new stars gleam
As we separately go to our dreams of opened heaven, —
The golden dawn shall tell you that you did not dream.
~~ Francis Sherman (1871-1926) From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
I hear the tinkling of the cattle bell, In the broad stillness of the afternoon; High in the cloudless haze the harvest moon
Is pallid as the phantom of a shell.
A girl is drawing water from a well, I hear the clatter of her wooden shoon; Two mothers to their sleeping babies croon,
And the hot village feels the drowsy spell.
Sleep, child, the Angel of Death his wings has spread; His engines scour the land, the sea, the sky; And all the weapons of Hell’s armoury
Are ready for the blood that is their bread; And many a thousand men to-night must die,
So many that they will not count the Dead.
~~
Maurice Baring (1874-1945)
from Poems, 1914-1919, 1920
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