Song / Trumbull Stickney

Song

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Trumbull Stickney biography

    "Song (Stickney version)" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

Summer Past / John Gray

Summer Past

    (To Oscar Wilde)

    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]

John Gray biography

 Silverpoints read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

("Summer Past" begins at 13:12)

September / Michael Field

September

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.

~~
Michael Field

from Wild Honey from Various Thyme, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Michael Field biography

    Txlixt Txlix T, Nature Reserve De Muy, September 2010. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

For Once, Then, Something / Robert Frost

For Once, Then, Something

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]

Robert Frost biography

"For Once, Then, Something" read by Patrick Donnelly. Courtesy The Frost Place.

Waiting for Winter / JD Shirk

Waiting For Winter

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

~~
JD Shirk, 2022

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

JD Shirk biography

Artwork created by Grok AI, powered by xAI.

Away / George J. Dance

Away

Away again, I'm missing you
And when I'll see you, I don't know.
I really don't know what to do.

I seem to see you for a few
Mere seconds, but then – poof! – you blow
Away again. I'm missing you.

Another night I must get through.
My thoughts meander to and fro.
I really don't know what to do.

I doodle or I write haiku,
Prosaic scraps I have to throw
Away again. I'm missing you.

I could watch "Captain Kangaroo"
Or "Friends" or "Simpsons" or – oh no,
I really don’t know what to do!

I need to stay alive for you,
Come back to you, and never go
Away. Again, I'm missing you;
I really don't know what to do.

~~
George J. Dance, 2007

from Logos, and other logoi, 2021

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

Bert Kaufmann, Loneliness, 2008. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

September's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for September 2025:

The Dwarf, by Wallace Stevens

Now it is September and the web is woven.

The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,

The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2010/01/dwarf-wallace-stevens.html

Penny's Top 20 / August 2025

     

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.   A Song to Mithras, Rudyard Kipling

  2.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas

  4.  Mid-August, Duncan Campbell Scott

  5.  As August Comes, Clinton Scollard

  6.  The Landscape, William Shenstone

  7.  August, Lizette Woodworth Reese

  8.  A Song in August, Francis Sherman

  9.  August, 1918, Maurice Baring

10.  From Piccadilly in August, John Freeman

11.   The Winter's Walk, John Hawkesworth

12.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

13.  Tardy Spring, George Meredith

14.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

15.  Angel Standing in the Sun, AE Reiff

16.  Mnemosyne, Trumbull Stickney

17.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

18.  Morning in August, James Herbert Morse

19.  Ganesha Girl on Rankin, Will Dockery

20. August, Folgore de San Geminiano

Source: Blogger, "Stats"