Suspending Winter Willingly in Disbelief / Cathleen Harvea Guthrie

 

Suspending Winter Willingly in Disbelief

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.

~~
Cathleen Harvea Guthrie, 2025 

from #autumnalpoemsbycathleenharveaguthrie 

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), Apple Gatherers, ca, 1859. Wikimedia Commons.

Autumn / Richard Chenevix Trench

Autumn

Thine, autumn, is unwelcome lore,
To tell the world its pomp is o'er.

To whisper in the rose's ear
That all her beauty is no more;

And bid her own the faith how vain,
Which spring to her so lately swore.

 
A queen deposed, she quits her state;
The nightingales her fall deplore.

The hundred-voiced bird may woo
The thousand-leaved flower no more.

The jasmine sinks its head in shame,
The sharp east wind its tresses tore,

And robbed in passing cruelly
The tulip of the crown it wore.

The lily's sword is broken now,
That was so bright and keen before;

And not a blast can blow, but strews
With leaf of gold the earth's dank floor,

The piping winds sing Nature's dirge,
As through the forest bleak they roar,

Whose leafy screen, like locks of eld,
Each day shows scantier than before.

Thou fadest as a flower, O man!
Of food for musing here is store.

O man, thou fallest as a leaf!
Pace thoughtfully earth's leafstrewn floor;

Welcome the sadness of the time,
And lay to heart this natural lore.

~~

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1866)
from Poems, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Chenevix Trench autobiography

"The Seasons" by Trench, read by Sonia for LibriVox. Courtesy Rhodoclassics.

("Autumn" begins at 4:15.)

Memory of My Father / Patrick Kavanagh

Memory of My Father

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from A Soul for Sale, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"Memory of My Father" read by Declan O'Connor.

Courtesy Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation.

The Cricket to October / Anne Whitney

The Cricket to October

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.

~~

Anne Whitney (1821-1915)

from Poems, 1859

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Anne Whitney biography

Vis M, Bush cricket, Kerala, India, 2021. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October 2025:

October, by Elinor Wylie

Beauty has a tarnished dress,
And a patchwork cloak of cloth
Dipped deep in mournfulness,
Striped like a moth
[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-elinor-wylie.html

Penny gets 1,000,000 page views

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.

Penny's Top 20 / September 2025

      

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  2.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

  3.  Jonah, AE Reiff

  4.  Away, George J. Dance

  5.  News, AE Reiff

  6.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  7.  Amarant, AE Reiff

  8.  The Branch, AE Reiff

  9.  Waiting for Winter, JD Shirk

10.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

11.   Angel Standing in the Sun, AE Reiff

12.  Once Like a Light, AE Reiff

13.  The Plant, AE Reiff

14.  Heaven's Man, AE Reiff

15.  Sunlight, AE Reiff

16.  Midnight Cry, R.K. Singh

17.  September, Michael Field

18.  For Once, Then, Something, Robert Frost

19.  Song, Trumbull Stickney

20. Summer Past, John Gray

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

September / Folgore da San Geminiano

from Of the Months

September

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[]

Folgore da San Geminiano biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti biography

from the Taccuinum Sanitatis, 14th century. Wikimedia Commons.

September / Madison Cawein

September

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Madison Cawein biography

"September" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy Best Audiobooks.

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 da San Geminiano

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

August / Folgore da San Geminiano

from Of the Months

August

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[September]

Folgore da San Geminiano biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti biography

Limbourg brothers, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 

ca. 1402-1416 (detail), Wikimedia Commons.

Morning in August / James Herbert Morse

Morning in August

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

James Herbert Morse biography

Victoria Lee Croasdell, August Dawn in North Dakota, 2013.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Fern Hill / Dylan Thomas

Fern HIll

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]

Dylan Thomas biography 

"Fern Hill" read by Richard Burton. Courtesy Richard Burton--topic.

From Piccadilly in August / John Freeman

From Piccadilly in August

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]

John Freeman biography

Arthur Hacker (1858-1919), A Wet Night at Piccadilly Circus, 1910. Wikimedia Commons.

Mid-August / Duncan Campbell Scott

Mid-August

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]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

Jared Rover, Cabot Trail Nova Scotia, August 2017. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The Landscape / William Shenstone

    Samuel Evans (1762-1835), The Leasowes (Shenstone's estate), 1788. Wikimedia Commons.

Song II.  The Landscape

How pleased within my native bowers
    Erewhile I pass'd the day!
Was ever scene so deck'd with flowers?
    Were ever flowers so gay?

How sweetly smiled the hill, the vale,
    And all the landscape round!
The river gliding down the dale,
    The hill with beeches crown'd!

But now, when urged by tender woes
    I speed to meet my dear,
That hill and stream my zeal oppose,
    And check my fond career.

No more, since Daphne was my theme,
    Their wonted charms I see:
That verdant hill, and silver stream,
    Divide my love and me.

~~
William Shenstone (1714-1763)
from Poetical Works
(edited by George Gilfilan), 1854

William Shenstone biography

"The Landskip" (The Landscape) read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy PoemsCafe.

A Song in August / Francis Sherman

A Song in August

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]

Francis Sherman biography 

Canoeing on the Upper Tomoka River, Florida, 1905. Wikimedia Commons.

August, 1918 / Maurice Baring

August, 1918

(In a French Village.)

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

Maurice Baring biography 

Léon Germain Pelouse (1838-1891), French riverside village at dusk, 1888.

Wikimedia Commons.

As August Comes / Clinton Scollard

As August Comes

In dull monotony of heat
    The hazy hills and lowlands lie,
And billow till they blend and meet
    With lurid amplitudes of sky.

The locust's shrilly fife-note cleaves
    The fervid air, a knife of sound,
As August comes with poppy leaves
    Around his swarthy temples bound.

~~
Clinton Scollard (1860-1932)
from  Old and New World Lyrics, 1888 

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

Clinton Scollard biography

Charles J. Sharp, Garden locust (Acanthacris ruficornis). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

August's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for August 2025:

A Song to Mithras, by Rudyard Kipling

[...]

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat.

Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.

[...]

(music by Griffin Distribution)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-song-to-mithras.html

Penny's Top 20 / July 2025

    

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.   Summer 1969, Michael G. Munoz

  2.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Morning of My Life, Will Dockery

  4.  The Mounting Summer, Brilliant and Ominous, Delmore Schwartz

  5.  The Moon and Stars are Making Love, George J. Dance

  6.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  7.  Even in the bluest noonday of July, Robert Louis Stevenson

  8.  July, William Morris

  9.  I am a Canadian, John Diefenbaker

10.  Gathered Roses, F.W. Bourdillon

11.   Summer Storm, Duncan Campbell Scott

12.  July, Folgore da San Geminiano

13.  A July Noon, Helen Gray Cone

14.  June, Folgore da San Geminiano

15.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

16.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

17.  At Day-close in November, Thomas Hardy

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

19.  When Mary the Mother Kissed the Child, Charles G.D. Roberts

20. The Gravedigger, Bliss Carman

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

July / Folgore da San Geminiano

from Of the Months

July

For July, in Siena, by the willow-tree,
    I give you barrels of white Tuscan wine
    In ice far down your cellars stored supine;
And morn and eve to eat in company
Of those vast jellies dear to you and me;
    Of partridges and youngling pheasants sweet,
    Boil'd capons, sovereign kids: and let their treat
Be veal and garlic, with whom these agree.
Let time slip by, till by-and-hy, all day;
    And never swelter through the heat at all,
But move at ease at home, sound, cool, and gay;
    And wear sweet-colour'd robes that lightly fall;
And keep your tables set in fresh array.
    Not coaxing spleen to be your seneschal.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[August]

Folgore da San Geminiano biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti biography

Limbourg brothers, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry,.

ca. 1402-1416 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

A July Noon / Helen Gray Cone

A July Noon

The sumachs, noiseless, by the still, hot road
Stand up as guards, with blood-red soldier plumes.
How light the hill-blue, clear of cloudy glooms!
How lone the land, with summer overflowed!
Dry crickets grate; a bee takes larger load
With low, pleased muttering, where the wild-rose blooms;
The bovine breath of sleeping fields perfumes
Warm air, with drifts of wayside spicery sowed.
Good earth, how glad a thing it is to be
Part of this full, yet placid life of thine,
Close to thy heart as humblest creatures press!
To claim our kinship with the clod,— resign,
One sunny hour, the spiritual stress
That leads, though lifts, our lives away from thee!

~~
Helen Gray Cone (1859-1934)
from Through the Year with the Poets: July, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Gray Cone biography

Nxr-at, Maize fields in July, Oststeiermark, 2009. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Summer Storm / Duncan Campbell Scott

Summer Storm

Last night a storm fell on the world
    From heights of drouth and heat,
The surly clouds for weeks were furled,
    The air could only sway and beat.

The beetles clattered at the blind,
    The hawks fell twanging from the sky,
The west unrolled a feathery wind,
    And the night fell sullenly.

The storm leaped roaring from its lair,
    Like the shadow of doom,
The poignard lightning searched the air,
    The thunder ripped the shattered gloom.

The rain came down with a roar like fire,
    Full-voiced and clamorous and deep,
The weary world had its heart's desire,
    And fell asleep.

And now in the morning early,
    The clouds are sailing by
Clearly, oh! so clearly,
    The distant mountains lie.

The wind is very mild and slow,
    The clouds obey his will,
They part and part and onward go,
    Travelling together still.

'Tis very sweet to be alive,
    On a morning that 's so fair,
For nothing seems to stir or strive,
    In the unconscious air.

A tawny thrush is in the wood,
    Ringing so wild and free; 

Only one bird has a blither mood,
    The white-throat on the tree.

~~
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from The Magic House, and other poems, 1895

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

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

Paul Harrison, Lightning Storm over Kingston, Ontario, 2011. 

CC BY-SA 4/0. Wikimedia Commons.

July / William Morris

from The Earthly Paradise

July

Fair was the morn to-day, the blossom's scent
Floated across the fresh grass, and the bees
With low vexed song from rose to lily went,
A gentle wind was in the heavy trees,
And thine eyes shone with joyous memories;
Fair was the early morn, and fair wert thou,
And I was happy, — Ah, be happy now!

Peace and content without us, love within
That hour there was, now thunder and wild rain,
Have wrapped the cowering world, and foolish sin,
And nameless pride, have made us wise in vain;
Ah. love! although the morn shall come again,
And on new rosebuds the new sun shall smile,
Can we regain what we have lost meanwhile?

E'en now the west grows clear of storm and threat,
But midst the lightning did the fair sun die:
Ah! he shall rise again for ages yet,
He cannot waste his life; but thou and I,
Who knows if next morn this felicity
My lips may feel, or if thou still shalt live
This seal of love renewed once more to give?

~~
William Morris (1834-1896)
from Through the Year with the Poets: July 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Morris biography

John Sutton, Radbourne: a July evening, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Morning of My Life / Will Dockery

Morning of My Life

Walking down my street
she shakes her head
in the summer heat.
We met back at
Richards Junior High,
talking to the Grass-man
all about the Taxman.
I never wanted to
have to say goodbye.
        She walked right in
        into the morning of my life.

All around the curfew
barefoot in the wet dew,
we chased a dream
we could never realize.
Talking about Black Betty,
I felt like J. Paul Getty;
I never knew a kiss
could get me this high.
        She walked right past
        through the morning of my life.

When she sang that song to me,
her secret longing to be free,
on the corner
in soft summer rain.
Bought America in a jar,
filled with samples from afar.
I felt her vibe shake me
like a steam train.
        She walked right through
        deep in the morning of my life.

She shook me,
she really woke me up,
perfect sky
and her big blue eyes.
She smiled my blues away.
Pretty baby, I wish
you could have stayed.

Then she kind of moved away;
life called
and we could not stay.
Sweet little lady
I think you've seen that movie too.
Saying goodbye to a friend
you never think it is the end.
I never thought
you were gone to stay.
        She walked right out
        out of the morning of my life.

~~
Will Dockery, 2016
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019 

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

"In the Morning of My Life" (c) 2025 by Will Dockery and Brian Mallard. All rights reserved.

Gathered Roses / Francis W. Bourdillon

Gathered Roses

Bill Nicholls, Bee in a Rose, 2016.

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Only a bee made prisoner,
    Caught in a gathered rose!
Was he not 'ware, a flower so fair
    For the first gatherer grows?

Only a heart made prisoner,
    Going out free no more!
Was he not 'ware, a face so fair
    Must have been gathered before?

~~
Francis W. Bourdillon (1852-1921)
from Among the Flowers, and other poems, 1878

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

Francis W. Bourdillon biography

The Mounting Summer, Brilliant and Ominous / Delmore Schwartz

The Mounting Summer, Brilliant and Ominous

A yellow-headed, gold-hammered, sunflower-lanterned
Summer afternoon: after the sun soared and soared
All morning to the marble shining heights of marvellous blue,
Like lions insurgent, bursting out of a great zoo,
As if all vividness poured down, poured out, poured
Over, bursting and breaking in all the altitudes of blaze,
As when the whole ocean rises and rises in irresistable motion, shaking;
The roar of the heart in a shell or the roar of the sea beyond the 

  concessions of possession and the secessions of time's fearful procession, 

  precious even in continuous perishing.

~~
Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
from Summer Knowledge: New and selected poems, 1959

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Delmore Schwartz biography

Amin010n, Burning sunny day, 2020 (detail). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.