May / Folgore de San Geminiano

from Of the Months

May

I give you horses for your games in May,
    And all of them well trained unto the course,–
    Each docile, swift, erect, a goodly horse;
With armor on their chests, and bells at play
Between their brows, and pennons fair and gay;
    Fine nets, and housings meet for warriors,
    Emblazoned with the shields ye claim for yours;
Gules, argent, or, all dizzy at noonday.
And spears shall split, and fruit go flying up
In merry counterchange for wreaths that drop
    From balconies and casements far above;
And tender damsels with young men and youths
Shall kiss together on the cheeks and mouths
    And every day be glad with joyful love.

~~
Folgore de San Geminiano (?1270-1332?)
translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
from The Early Italian Poets, 1861

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Folgore de San Geminiano biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti biography

Medieval jousting tournament. Unknown ms., 17th century. Wikimedia Commons.

The Town Rabbit in the Country / Camilla Doyle

The Town Rabbit in the Country

Rabbit on Lawn, Enoch Leung, 2019. 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Three hours ago in Seven Dials
She lived awaiting all the trials
That haunt her race, but now shall be
Freed on the lawn to play with me.

In the dim shop her eyes were grey
And languid; but in this bright day
To a full circle each dilates,
And turns the blue of Worcester plates
In the unaccustomed sun; she stares
At strange fresh leaves; the passing airs,
Outstretching from her box's brink,
She gulps as if her nose could drink.

Now o'er the edge she scrambles slow,
Too pleased to know which way to go –
Half dazed with pleasure she explores
This sunny, eatable out-of-doors.

Then shakes and tosses up her ears
Like plumes upon bold cavaliers –
The dust flies out as catherine-wheels
Throw sparks as round she twirls and reels –
Her spine it quivers like an eel's –
Over her head she flings her heels,
Comes down askew, then waltzes till
She must reverse or else feel ill –
Reverses, then lies down and pants

As one who has no further wants,
Staring with half-believing eyes
Like souls that wake in Paradise.

~~
Camilla Doyle (1888-1944)
from The Best Poems of 1923, 1924

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

Camilla Doyle biography

Philomel / Richard Barnfield

Philomel

Rufous (common) Nightingale, 

photo by Carlos Delgado, 2015. 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

As it fell upon a day 

In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap and birds did sing,
Trees did grow and plants did spring;
Everything did banish moan
Save the Nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn
Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry;
Tereu, Tereu! by and by;
That to hear her so complain
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah! thought I, thou mourn’st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees they cannot hear thee,
Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:
King Pandion he is dead,
All thy friends are lapp’d in lead;
All thy fellow birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing:
Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.

~~
Richard Barnfield (1574-1627)
from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900
(edited by Arthur Quiller Couch), 1918

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[See also: "Philomela" by Philip Sidney]

Richard Barnfield biography

Youth and Nature / Philip Bourke Marston

Youth and Nature

Is this the sky, and this the very earth
    I had such pleasure in when I was young?
    And can this be the identical sea-song,
Heard once within the storm-cloud's awful girth,
When a great cloud from silence burst to birth;
    And winds to whom it seemed I did belong
    Made the keen blood in me run swift and strong
With irresistible, tempestuous mirth?

Are these the forests loved of old so well,
    Where on May nights enchanted music was?
    Are these the fields of soft, delicious grass;
These the old hills with secret things to tell?
O my dead youth, was this inevitable,
    That with thy passing, Nature, too, should pass?

~~
Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)
from Collected Poems, 1892

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Philip Bourke Marston biography

Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887). Courtesy Musikinesis.

On Mulberry Drive / Will Dockery

On Mulberry Drive 

On Mulberry Drive
walking in the Spring rain.
Except for signs of a driveway
nothing else remains.
They took it all away
the house and the hill.
That spot we shared in '78
all the love and thrills.

Oblivion is coming
it's written in the stone.
It really starts out
on the day that you're born.
Live every second
dance what you've captured.
Shadowville Mythos...
is on the last chapter.

On Mulberry Drive
on another mystery play.
Almost fifty years ago
still seems like yesterday.
That long driveway
now goes into space.
We thought we'd live forever
not dead and disgraced.

Darkness is falling
archived in a book.
It really gets smaller
the closer you look.
Breathe deeply my darling
smoke them if you have to.
Shadowville Mythos...
is on the last chapter.

On Mulberry Drive
now the hail's coming down.
Taps on the umbrella
as I'm walking around.
I remember that fireplace
I remember her smile.
I remember Edgewood Park
where we'd laugh for a while.

In the living room
I heard a ghost moan,
As I talked with the Cavalier
on a land line telephone.
Relive every second
these memories you've captured.
Shadowville Mythos...
is on the last chapter.

~~
Will Dockery, 2023
from Shadowville Mythos, March 2023

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

"On Mulberry Drive" performed by Will Dockery & Brian Mallard, 2025.

The Courage That My Mother Had / Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Courage That My Mother Had

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

~~
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Mine the Harvest, 1949

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

Edna St. Vincent Millay biography 

 

"The courage that my mother had" read by Kathryn Sadjak  Courtesy Millay Society.

The Entering May / Ralph Waldo Emerson

from May-Day

The Entering May

Where shall we keep the holiday,
And duly greet the entering May?
Too strait and low our cottage doors,
And all unmeet our carpet floors;
Nor spacious court, nor monarch’s hall,
Suffice to hold the festival.
Up and away! where haughty woods
Front the liberated floods:
We will climb the broad-backed hills,
Hear the uproar of their joy;
We will mark the leaps and gleams
Of the new-delivered streams,
And the murmuring rivers of sap
Mount in the pipes of the trees,
Giddy with day, to the topmost spire,
Which for a spike of tender green
Bartered its powdery cap;
And the colors of joy in the bird,
And the love in its carol heard,
Frog and lizard in holiday coats,
And turtle brave in his golden spots;
While cheerful cries of crag and plain
Reply to the thunder of river and main.

~~
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882
from Through the Year with the Poets: May 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ralph Waldo Emerson biography

"May-Day" from Ralph Waldo Emerson YouTube. (Selection runs 8.18 - 9.10).

Song on May Morning / John Milton

Song on May Morning

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
    Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
    Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
    Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
    Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
    And welcom thee, and wish thee long.

~~
John Milton (1608-1674)
from Poetical Works, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Milton biography

"Song on May Morning" read by Tom Kinsella. Courtesy LITT at Stockton.

Waiting for the May / Denis MacCarthy

Waiting for the May (Summer Longings)

                Las mananas floridas de Abril y Mayo. – Calderon

    Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
        Waiting for the May –
Waiting for the pleasant rambles,
Where the fragrant hawthorn brambles,
    With the woodbine alternating,
        Scent the dewy way.
    Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
        Waiting for the May.

    Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
        Longing for the May –
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
    And the thousand charms belonging
        To the summer's day.
    Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
        Longing for the May.

    Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
        Sighing for the May –
Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
    Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
        All the winter lay.
    Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
        Sighing for the May.

    Ah! my heart is pained and throbbing,
        Throbbing for the May –
Throbbing for the sea-side billows,
Or the water-wooing willows,
    Where in laughing and in sobbing
        Glide the streams away.
    Ah! my heart is pained and throbbing,
    Throbbing for the May.

    Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
        Waiting for the May.
Spring goes by with wasted warnings,
Moon-lit evenings, sun-bright mornings;
    Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
        Life still ebbs away:
    Man is ever weary, weary,
        Waiting for the May!

~~

Denis Florence MacCarthy (1817-1882)

from Poems, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Denis MacCarthy biography

Michael Martin, May Morning, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

May's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for May 2025:

May Wind, by Sara Teasdale

 I said, "I have shut my heart

As one shuts an open door,

That Love may starve within

And trouble me no more."

[...]

(read by Aimee Reads Poetry)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2013/05/may-wind-teasdale.html

Penny's Top 20 / April 2025

 

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in April 2025:

  1.  The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

  2.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  4.  An April Fool of Long Ago, Jean Blewett

  5.  An April Shower, George J. Dance

  6.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

  7.  April on the Battlefields, Leonora Speyer

  8.  Spring Again, George J. Dance
  9.  Skating, William Wordsworth

10.  April, Folgore de San Geminiano

11.  An Easter Carol, Christina Rossetti

12.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

13.  The Lonely Hunter, Fiona MacLeod

14.  To the Sea Angel, Will Dockery

15.  March, Folgore de San Geminiano

16.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

17.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens

18.  Puella Parvula, Wallace Stevens

19.  Penny's Blog 2.0, George J. Dance

20. The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats

Source: Blogger, "Stats"