The Waste Land (III) / T.S. Eliot

            III.  The Fire Sermon

    The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest —
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

                        The river sweats
                        Oil and tar
                        The barges drift
                        With the turning tide
                        Red sails
                        Wide
                        To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
                        The barges wash
                        Drifting logs
                        Down Greenwich reach
                        Past the Isle of Dogs.
                                    Weialala leia
                                    Wallala leialala

                        Elizabeth and Leicester
                        Beating oars
                        The stern was formed
                        A gilded shell
                        Red and gold
                        The brisk swell
                        Rippled both shores
                        Southwest wind
                        Carried down stream
                        The peal of bells
                        White towers
                                    Weialala leia
                                    Wallala leialala

‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’

‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?’

‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
                            la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

[continued]

"The Waste Land Part III The Fire Sermon" by T.S. Eliot

(read by Tom O'Bedlam). Courtesy SpokenVerse.

The Waste Land (IV-V) / T.S. Eliot

            IV.  Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                            A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                                            Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.


            V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                            If there were water
        And no rock
        If there were rock
        And also water
        And water
        A spring
        A pool among the rock
        If there were the sound of water only
        Not the cicada
        And dry grass singing
        But sound of water over a rock
        Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
        Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
        But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
— But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

                                        I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon — O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih     shantih      shantih

~~

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

from The Waste Land, 1922

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

T.S. Eliot biography

Read complete poem

"The Waste Land - Death by Water & What the Thunder Said" by T.S. Eliot

(read by Tom O'Bedlam). Courtesy Spoken Verse.

April's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for April 2025:

An April Fool of Long Ago, by Jean Blewett

In powdered wig and buckled shoe,
Knee-breeches, coat and waistcoat gay,
The wealthy squire rode forth to woo
Upon a first of April day.
[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2014/04/april-fool-jean-blewett.html

Penny's Top 20 / March 2025

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  Winter Ghost (Taking a Time Out), Will Dockery

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

  3.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  4.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  5.  Tired of Waiting, Will Dockery

  6.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  7.  Spring is like a perhaps hand, E.E. Cummings

  8.  Always Marry an April Girl, Ogden Nash
  9.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

10.  A Brief Winter Sunset, JD Shirk

11.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

12.  A Disappointment, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

13.  March is the Month of Expectation, Emily Dickinson 

14.  Song in March, William Gilmore Simms

15.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

16.  Saint Augustine Blues #6, Will Dockery

17.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

18.  March, Folgore de San Geminiano

19.  Spring: An ode, Jane West

20. To My Sister, William Wordsworth

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

March / Folgore de San Geminiano

from Sonnets of the Months

March

In March I give you plenteous fisheries
    Of lamprey and of salmon, eel and trout.
    Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout
Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas.
With fishermen and fishingboats at ease,
    Sail-barques and arrow-barques and galeons stout,
    To bear you, while the season lasts, far out,
And back, through spring, to any port you please.
But with fair mansions see that it be fill'd,
    With everything exactly to your mind,
        And every sort of comfortable folk.
No convent suffer there, nor priestly guild:
    Leave the mad monks to preach after their kind
        Their scanty truth, their lies beyond a joke.

~~
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

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

Spring Sonnet / E.A. Woodward

Spring Sonnet

The drear and lonesome season now has gone
And winter's sadness will be turned to mirth;
The opening buds and smiling flowers each dawn,
Will greet with joy this gladder season's birth.
The earth awakened from the winter's dearth,
The robin chirps with glee o'er grassy lawn;
And wilder spots have felt the sunbeam's worth,
Which charm to gayer pranks the sportive fawn.
All nature smiles in springtime fashion dressed,
The fertile fields resound with plowman's song;
The noisy sparrow builds 'neath eaves her nest,
The woodland trembles with the warbling throng.
New life is born, new hope inspires the breast,
For spring has come and all the world is blest.

~~
E.A. Woodward
from Sonnets and Acrostics, 1916

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

E.A. Woodward biography

Henryk Uziemblo (1879–1949), Springtime Thaw, 1908 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

Song in March / William Gilmore Simms

Song in March

Wikimedia Commons.

Now are the winds about us in their glee
Tossing the slender tree;
Whirling the sands about his furious car
March cometh from afar;
Breaks the seal'd magic of old Winter's dreams,
And rends his glassy streams;
Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes
Their fetters from the lakes,
And, with a power by queenly Spring supplied,
Wakens the slumbering tide.

With a wild love he seeks young Summer's charms,
And clasps her in his arms;
Lifting his shield between, he drives away
Old Winter from his prey;–
The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves,
Goes howling to his caves;
And, to his northern realm compelled to fly,
Yields up the victory;
Melted are all his bands, o'erthrown his towers,
And March comes bringing flowers.

~~
William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870)
from Poems: Descriptive, dramatic, legendary and contemplative, 1853 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Gilmore Simms biography

"Song in March" read for Audiobook Passion.

Spring: An ode / Jane West

Spring: An ode

And now, obedient to divine command,
Reluctant winter yields his rigid reign;
Exulting Nature breaks his cruel band,
And welcomes Flora to her old domain;
She from her chariot strews ambrosial flowers;
'Tis she, that decks the vales, and renovates the bowers.

The pendent icicle perceives the thaw,
Then quits the straw-roof'd cot, and melts away;
The snow beholds, and hastens to withdraw,
But loses first its innocent array:
Assuming now, a robe of murky hue
More soil'd, as more receding from our view.

Ice in its northern magazine lies chain'd,
And all the furious hurricanes are bound;
Zephyr, by Eurus fierce too long restrain'd,
Now claps his pinions at the joyful sound;
The gentle shower descends; earth opens wide
Her jaws, and thirsty sucks the copious tide.

The glorious sun with vegetative powers
Endues the air, resolving to unchain
The willing world, while in his noon-tide hours:
Well knowing, that his sister Queen again,
When she resum'd her silver throne, would freeze
The brooks and rills, and hardly spare the seas.

And now alternate, what bright Phoebus thaws
By day, by night the Queen of shade congeals:
Nature, subservient to discordant laws,
In all her springs the dire commotion feels:
The bud, that noon-tide suns inspir'd to rise,
Lies dead at evening, chill'd by frosty skies.

Mid the confusion, whilst we scarce can tell
If winter stays or flies, the snow-drop rears
Her humid head, and fills each drooping bell
With incense pure and odoriferous tears:
Safe in its native innocence it stands,
Nor dreads keen Boreas, nor the wintry bands.

Yet, but a herald to the crocus proud,
Who peers a King in golden arms array'd,
Around him daffodils and violets crowd,
And primroses dear to the wood-land maid;
Succeeded quickly by a thousand flowers,
All that delight in meadows, hills, and bowers.

Behold, the elm puts on its dark array
Of dusky green; forth shoots the alder dun;
In the light breeze the leaves of aspin play;
The bushy sycamore desires the sun;
And last, as if the sylvan band to close,
The regal oak his ample foliage shows.

But see, the young creation is awake;
The household bee forsakes her waxen cell;
The finny nations wanton in the lake;
The gentle birds their pleasing descants tell;
The lordly steed indignant paws the ground;
And o'er green thymy banks the lambkins bound.

And now the etherial ram the zenith leaves,
The ram of old surcharg'd with Helle's fate;
This, the proud bull, his rival stern, perceives,
And issue forth in all his radiant state,
He bends his starry horns, enwreath'd with light,
As if to rend the dusky veil of night.

The blessed sun his beams benignly pours
On the glad earth, and bids creation smile:
Exuberant nature pours forth all her stores,
And chearful swains renew their annual toil:
War too, by intermission unsubdu'd,
Resumes its rage for violence and blood!

But that I fear my mortal muse would faint,
And leave me aidless in th' unbounded space,
My song the starry firmament should paint,
How planets run their vast eliptic race,
Arcturus urging on his starry team,
Orion's sword, and Ursa's guiding beam.

But let me stop the thought, nor strive to rein
This fiery steed, nor compass heights divine;
Lest I, dismounted on the Lycian plain,
Mourn like Bellerophon the rash design;
Enough that I with rude and doric strain,
Oh genial spring! have hail'd thy welcome reign.

~~
Jane West (1756-1852)
from Miscellaneous Poems, 1786

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Jane West biography

Workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) & Hendrick van Balen the Elder (1573–1632),

Flora im Blumengarten, circa 1617-1618 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

A Disappointment / Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

LXXXVII.  A Disappointment

Spring, of a sudden, came to life one day.
Ere this, the winter had been cold and chill.
That morning first the summer air did fill
The world, making bleak March seem almost May.
The daffodils were blooming golden gay;
The birch trees budded purple on the hill;
The rose, that clambered up the window-sill,
Put forth a crimson shoot. All yesterday
The winds about the casement chilly blew,
But now the breeze that played about the door,
So caught the dead leaves that I thought there flew
Brown butterflies up from the grassy floor.
— But someone said you came not. Ah, too true!
And I, I thought that winter reigned once more.

~~
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922)
from The Love-Sonnets of Proteus, 1890

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt biography

Pavel Soro, Flying Leaves in London, 2017 (detail). CC0 1.0, Wikimedia Commons.

March is the Month of Expectation / Emily Dickinson

[1404]

March is the Month of Expectation.
The things we do not know —
The Persons of prognostication
Are coming now —
We try to show becoming firmness —
But pompous Joy
Betrays us, as his first Betrothal
Betrays a Boy.

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Dickinson biography

Beatrice Murch, Expectations, 2011. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A Brief Winter Sunset / JD Shirk

A Brief Winter Sunset

The winter's heavy blanket lay
Across the sky in shades of gray
An inch or so of snow was fresh
But cheerless in the gloominess

Until above an evening hill
I watched a glow break through the chill
It framed the farm and trees up there
Then faded into cold night air

~~

JD Shirk, 2024

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery, Chattahoochee Sunset, 2025. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Tired of Waiting / Will Dockery

Martin Vorel, Young woman walking on the street,
Prague, 2018. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Tired of Waiting

You tired of walking
streets
where we waited for you.

Cruel daybreak
tortures me with sound
and memory of
your street corner smile.

Dreams reveal too much
to remember:

From black seedless midnight
to feverish broad daylight
you never get older.

You stand
in the dark
dark side of the cold.
Spring is trapped
in the crystal.

~~
Will Dockery, 2018
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019 

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

March's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for March 2025:

Spring is like a perhaps hand, by E.E. Cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
[...]

(read by E.E. Cummings)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2014/03/spring-is-like-perhaps-hand-ee-cummings.html

Penny's Top 20 / February 2025

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  Penny's Blog, George J. Dance

  2.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  3.  O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go?, David Gray

  4.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  5.  January, George J. Dance

  6.  The Lodger, Francis Sherman

  7.  February, James Berry Bensel

  8.  The Quiet Snow, Raymond Knister
  9.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

10.  Song: To Celia, Ben Jonson

11.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

12.  Winter Heat, Will Dockery

13.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

14.  'Tis the World's Winter, Alfred Tennyson

15.  Winter Sunset, William Carlos Williams

16.  A Meadow in Spring, Tom Bishop

17.  Winterworld Descending, Will Dockery

18.  In February, Frank Dempster Sherman 

19.  Before the Birth of Spring, Charles Leonard Moore

20. River of My Eyes, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

'Tis the World's Winter / Alfred Tennyson

'Tis the World's Winter

from Nothing Will Die (1830)

'Tis the world's winter;
    Autumn and summer
        Are gone long ago.
Earth is dry to the centre,
    But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
        Shall make the winds blow
        Round and round.
        Through and through,
            Here and there,
            Till the air
        And the ground
        Shall be filled with life anew.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from Through the Year with the Poets: February 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Fernweh, "Late Winter - Small's Copse", 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Before the Birth of Spring / Charles Leonard Moore

L

Before the birth of Spring there comes a time,
Some February day's faint augury,
With something of the Summer's gentle prime,
Rude yet with Winter's unrelinquished sway.
Such charm of doubtful season is there here;
Spring's green enamel donned too hastily
Lets icicles and frozen buds appear;
But the bland air is all the breath of May.
Look not again to see such halting act
In the round of the passion-entered year,
Such tame recital of tumultuous fact
From this full song whose midsummer is near.
    Now, Daemon, waft I thee my last embrace,
    And mourn the vision of thy vanished face.

~~
Charles Leonard Moore (1854-1928)
from Book of Day-Dreams, 1888

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

Charles Leonard Moore biography

Pauline E., A Bit of a Thaw (detail), Malton, UK, 2012. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The Lodger / Francis Sherman

The Lodger

1.

What! and do you find it good,
Sitting here alone with me?
Hark! the wind goes through the wood
And the snow drifts heavily,

When the morning brings the light
How know I you will not say,
"What a storm there fell last night,
Is the next inn far away?"

How know I you do not dream
Of some country where the grass
Grows up tall around the gleam
Of the milestones you must pass?

Even now perhaps you tell
(While your hands play through my hair)
Every hill, each hidden well,
All the pleasant valleys there,

That before a clear moon shines
You will be with them again!
— Hear the booming of the pines
And the sleet against the pane.


2.

Wake, and look upon the sun,
I awoke an hour ago,
When the night was hardly done
And still fell a little snow,

Since the hill-tops touched the light
Many things have my hands made,
Just that you should think them right
And be glad that you have stayed.

—How I worked the while you slept!
Scarcely did I dare to sing!
All my soul a silence kept —
Fearing your awakening.

Now, indeed, I do not care
If you wake; for now the sun
Makes the least of all things fair
That my poor two hands have done.


3.

No, it is not hard to find.
You will know it by the hills —
Seven — sloping up behind;
By the soft perfume that fills

(O, the red, red roses there!)
Full the narrow path thereto:
By the dark pine-forest where
Such a little wind breathes through;

By the way the bend o' the stream
Takes the peace that twilight brings:
By the sunset, and the gleam
Of uncounted swallows' wings.

— No, indeed, I have not been
There: but such dreams I have had!
And, when I grow old, the green
Leaves will hide me, too, made glad.

Yes, you must go now, I know.
You are sure you understand?
— How I wish that I could go
Now, and lead you by the hand.

~~
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

George Morland (1763-1804), Outside an Inn, Winter, 1795. Wikimedia Commons.

In February / Frank Dempster Sherman

In February

Like mimic meteors the snow
In silence out of heaven sifts.
And wanton winds that wake and blow
Pile high their monumental drifts.

And looking through the window-panes
I see, 'mid loops and angles crossed,
The dainty geometric skeins
Drawn by the fingers of the Frost.

'Tis here at dawn where comes his love,
All eager and with smile benign,
A golden Sunbeam from above,
To read the Frost's gay valentine.

~~

Frank Dempster Sherman (1860-1916)
From Madrigals and Catches, 1887

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

 
Frank Dempster Sherman biography

Alexandr Frolov, Frosted Patterns on a Window, 2011. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Song: To Celia / Ben Jonson

Song: To Celia

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
        And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
        And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
        Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
        I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
        Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
        It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
        And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
        Not of itself, but thee.

~~
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
from The Forest, 1616

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ben Jonson biography

"Song: To Celia" read by Bruce Wall. Courtesy Poetry Refit.

O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go? / David Gray

XXII

O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go?
    O Summer! but I weary for thy coming;
Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow,
    And frugal bees laboriously humming.
Now, the east wind diseases the infirm,
    And I must crouch in corners from rough weather.
Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm —
    When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together,
And the large sun dips, red, behind the hills.
    I, from my window, can behold this pleasure;
And the eternal moon, what time she fills
    Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure,
With queenly motion of a bridal mood,
Through the white spaces of infinitude.

~~
David Gray (1838-1861)
from In the Shadows, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide] 

David Gray biography

Alexander Baidukov, Winter sunset over the North Coast, 2021.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Winter Sunset / William Carlos Williams

Winter Sunset

Then I raised my head
and stared out over
the blue February waste
to the blue bank of hill
with stars on it
in strings and festoons –
but above that:
one opaque
stone of a cloud
just on the hill
left and right
as far as I could see;
and above that
a red streak, then
icy blue sky!
It was a fearful thing
to come into a man's heart
at that time; that stone
over the little blinking stars
they'd set there.

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
from A Book of Poems: Al que quiere!, 1917

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

William Carlos Williams biography

Adam Ward, A Winter Sunset, 2021. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

February's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for February 2025:

The Quiet Snow, by Raymond Knister

The quiet snow

Will splotch

Each in the row of cedars

With a fine

And patient hand;

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2013/02/quiet-snow-knister.html

Penny's Top 20 / January 2025

                                            

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  Penny's Blog, George J. Dance

  2.  Winterworld Descending, Will Dockery

  3.  January, George J. Dance

  4.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  5.  A Winter Picture, Ethelwyn Wetherald 

  6.  Logos, George J. Dance

  7.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  8.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin
  9.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

10.  Bird Cage, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

11.  August, Edmund Spenser

12.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud

13.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

14.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

15.  Nativity, John Donne

16.  North Wind in October, Robert Bridges

17.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett

18.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
19.  Always There, George J. Dance

20. The Branch, AE Reiff

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

Penny's Blog: Introduction

Penny's Blog: Introduction

[To skip the introduction and go straight to the pennypoem, click this link.]

Penny's Poetry Blog went public on New Year's Day 2010, with the publication of our first (and still the longest) pennypoem, "Penny (or Penny's Hat)". To mark the blog's 15th anniversary, we are publishing a new pennypoem, "Penny's Blog". 

So what is a pennypoem? First and foremost, it is a "conceptual" poem. Conceptual poetry, as the Academy of American Poets explains it, is:

an early twenty-first century literary movement, self-described by its practitioners as an act of  "uncreative writing." In conceptual poetry, appropriation is often used as a means to create new work, focused more on the initial concept rather than the final product of the poem.

(Academy of American Poets, "A Brief Guide to Conceptual Poetry")

The basic idea, as I understand it, is similar to a "found poem," which takes non-poetic text and repurposes it as a poem. In addition, though, conceptual poems are governed by an overriding concept that acts as a rule of writing; essentially, it deals with the lack of formal rules in free verse by  substituting a different rule or set of rules. 

Source texts can be anything. In "Penny" the sources were various lists of colors; in "Penny's OS" they were software operating systems; in "Penny's Cat is Dead" they were euphemisms for dying; and in "Penny's Blog" they are the titles of all the poems that have appeared on the blog over the past fifteen years. In all cases the conceptual rule has been to compile all the source texts into one comprehensive alphabetical list. 

Which brings us to the second feature of pennypoems; they are "list poems". List poems have a long, if not respectable, history. I first encountered the term in a work by Northrop Frye, who argued that the "list of reminders or stimuli" is "the central technical device of nostalgic verse," citing this example by Canadian poet Edna Jaques:

The strong clean smell of yellow soap,

A farmer plowing with a team,

The taste of huckleberry pie,

A pan of milk with wrinkled cream.

All words have power to stimulate independent thoughts in a reader; in "Penny's Blog" that is especially so whenever the reader recognizes a poem title. The main point of the pennypoems, though, is to evoke sonics rather than images; to write poetry that is organized around sound rather than sense.  Which makes the third poetic type in which pennypoems can be classified: "sound poetry." The items on the lists are chosen and grouped together, in various combinations depending on the poem, to make the best sounding lines. (For that reason, I would suggest reading the poems both quietly and aloud at different times.)

An optional feature of some pennypoems has been the production of 2.0 versions: hyperlinked versions of the poem that one can use for further information on the words used. In Penny's Blog 2.0" the links lead directly to the poems on the blog; so long as the blog remains active, so do the links. "Penny's Blog 2.0" appears down below following "Penny's Blog".

One final feature of pennypoems can be noted: all of them begin and end with a short frame tale featuring Penny, a fictional character whom I invented to be the virtual editor of the blog. These brief narratives are a nod to conventional narrative poetry, meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. 

Despite the frame tales, I must stress that a pennypoem is the furthest thing from narrative poetry. There is no storyline, no narrative progression no development, and therefore no reason to start at the beginning and read through to the end. That is why the pennypoems are presented on the blog as individual stanzas, rather than as a continuous work. One can read "Penny's Blog" as a continuous work, of course, if one wishes; to do so, simply click the "begin reading" link underneath this essay to get to the first stanza, then click the "continued" link at the end of each stanza to go on to the next. However, it makes just as much sense to browse through the poem at random; to read it that way, use the table of contents on the left side of the page. 

And that is probably more information than a reader needs or wants to know. (If you do have questions, or other comments, feel free to post them in the comments section at the end of this piece.) So, please go have a look at  "Penny's Blog." I hope you will have some of the fun reading it that I had writing it. 

[Begin reading:]

Penny's Blog (s 1)

Penny's Blog

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

- The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

1

Penny likes to read poetry. She has a blog,
Penny's Poetry Blog, where she shares
poems she has read and enjoyed:
abandonment, Absence, Accompaniment, Accueil,
Acorns, Adam's Curse, Adlestrop, Advent,
Advent of Today, Advice to a Buttefly,
After Apple-Picking, Afterglow, After Loos,
Afternoon in February, Afternoon on a Hill,
After Rain, After Soufrière, After Summer,
After Summer Rain, After Tea, After the Rain,
After the Winter, Again at Christmas did we weave,
Age, All Hallows' Night, All in June, All Souls' Night,
All the Hills and Vales Along, All Things Burn,
Always Marry an April Girl, Always There, Amarant,
America, Among the Foot-Hills of the Rockies,
Among the Rocks, Ancestral Houses, The Ancient Game,
Ancient Music, And wilt thou have me fashion into speech,
The Angels' Anthem, Angel Standing in the Sun,
Answer July, Anthem for Doomed Youth, The Anxious Dead,
Any Woman, Approach of Winter, April,
An April Adoration, April Again, April (An April Day),
April: A pastoral poem, April Aubade, The April Day,
An April Fool of Long Ago, April Fool's Day,
An April Interlude - 1917, April in the Hills,
Aprill, April Madness, An April Morning,
An April Night, April's Fool, April Rain,
An April Rain Song, April Snow, April Weather,
L'aquarelle, Arlington, As at a Theater,
As imperceptibly as Grief, As We Go On,
At Christmas-tide, At Day-close in November,
At Lord's, At Night, At one time, At the Ball Game,
At the End of September, At the Gates of Dawn,
At the New Year, At the Palais, At the Seaside,
At the Year's Turn, August, August: A pastoral poem,
August (Beside the Sea), August Child, An August Cricket,
August Evening on the Beach, Lake Huron, August in the City,
An August Midnight, August Moon, August Moonrise,
August Night, August Night, on Georgian Bay,
August Noonday, August Wind, An August Wood Road,
Auld Lang Syne, Autrefois, Autumn, Autumnal,
Autumnal Day, Autumnal Sonnet, An Autumnal Thought,
Autumn: An ode, Autumn Ballad, Autumn Communion, 

Autumn Dawn, Autumn Dream, Autumn Evening,
Autumn Fires, Autumn Haiku, Autumn in Sussex, Autumn It Was,
Autumn Love, Autumn Maples, Autumn Movement, Autumn Music,
Autumn Nite, Autumn Orchards, Autumn Rain, 
The Autumn Sheaf, Autumn's Orchestra, The Autumn Thistles,

Autumn Treasure, Autumn Twilight, Autumn Wind,
Awake, thou Spring, Away from Town,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 2)

2

Back Yard, baguette, Balance, 

Ballade of Christmas Ghosts, Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights, 

Ballade of Summer's Sleep, Ballad of the Goodly Fere, 

Ballade of the Poet's Thought, Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping, 

Barbara Allen's Cruelty, Barley Feed, baseball, The Bat and the Loon,
Bath, The Battle of Blenheim, Bavarian Gentians,
The Beach in August, Beach Song, Beautiful Old Age,
Because, one night, my soul reached out, The Bed of Old John Zeller, 

Beeny Cliff, Before Harvest, Before Spring, Before the Snow,
Believe It or Not, The Bells, Beloved, 

Beneath Apple Boughs, Benediction, Berkshires in April, 

Besides the Autumn poets sing, Between the dusk of a summer night, 

Birches, Bird Cage, Birds of Passage, Bird Song,
The birds that sing on autumn eves, Black and Blue Night,
Blind, Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Blizzard,
The Blue Heron, Blue Squills, The Bobolinks,
Bombardment, A Book of Dreams, The Book of Wisdom,
A Boy and His Dad, Boy Remembers in the Field,
Braggart, Bramble-Hill, The Branch,
Break, Break, Break, Break of Day in the Trenches,
Breeze, The Breezes of June, The Bright Extensive Will,
Bring, in this timeless grave to throw, The Brook in February, 

The Burning Babe, Burning the Christmas Greens, But One,
By the Pacific Ocean, By the Autumn Sea, By the Sea,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 3)

3

The Call, Call Back Our Dead, The Call of the Green,
Calmly We Walk through This April's Day,
Canada, Canadian Autumn Tints, Canadian Folk-Song,
The Canadian Nightingale in May, A Canadian Summer Evening,
Candles that Burn, Card Game, Casey at the Bat,
Cease Fire, C'est là sans appui, Ceremonies for Christmas,
Change, Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion,
Cherry-Ripe, The Cherry Tree, The Children,
Chloris in the Snow, Christmas, Christmas at Melrose,
Christmas at Sea, Christmas Bells, A Christmas-cake,
A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol for 1862,
Christmas Cheer, A Christmas Childhood, Christmas Eve,
A Christmas Greeting, Christmas in the Olden Time,
A Christmas Lullaby, Christmas Morn, The Christmas Night,
Christmas 1915, Christmas 1917, Christmas Prophecy,
The Christmas Silence, A Christmas Song, Christmas Sonnet,
A Christmas Symphony, Christmas Trees, Christmas Violets,
Christ's Nativity, Christ Walks in This Infernal District Too,
Chūn Wàng, The City Revisited, A City Sunset, Clay Dreams,
Coin of the Year, The cold earth slept below, The Cold Heaven,
Come, come thou bleak December wind, The Coming of Winter,
The Coming of Spring: Madrid, Coming Spring, 

Commencement perpétuel, Communion, 

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, concrete, 

The Conjurer, Conjuror, Connecticut Autumn, Consecration, 

A Contemplation upon Flowers, Corinna's Going a-Maying,
A corpse demands a drink, Country Boy Sliding, The Country Faith,
Crepuscule, Cuckoo Song, The Cup, Cynara,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 4)

4

Daily News, Daisy, Dance Pageant,
Dandelions, The Dark Hills,
Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain,
The Darkling Thrush, Darkness, Dawn in the June Woods,
The Day, The Day Charles Bukowski Died,
A Day in June, A Day in Spring, The Day is Waning,
Daysleepers, Dead Leaves, Dead or Alive,
The Dead, Dear March - Come in,
Death as the Teacher of Love-Lore,
The Death of the Flowers, The Death of the Old Year,
A Decade, December, December: A pastoral poem,
A December Day, December ('Neath Mistletoe),
Decorating, Defeat, Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Demons,
Departure, Description of Spring, Desert Places,
Design for November, Desolation is a Delicate Thing,
The Devil, the Moon, and the River, Dialogue of the Earth and Flower,
Digging, Dirge, A Dirge, A Dirge for Summer,
Dirge in Woods, Dirge of the Departed Year,
Dirty Spring, A Distant Spring, The Diver, Doggerel,
Domesday, Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d'ete,
The Donkey, The Dove of New Snow, A Dream,
A Dream in November, Drifting Away: A fragment,
The Drum, A Duet, Dulce et Decorum est,
Dusk in June, Dust of Snow, The Dwarf,
The Dying Philosopher to His Fiddler,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 5)

5

Each tree did boast the wishèd spring times pride,
The eager note on my door, The Eagle That Is Forgotten,
Early April, Early Autumn, Early May in New England,
Early Spring, Early Summer, Early Winter,
East Coker, Easter, An Easter Canticle,
Easter Day, Easter Evening, The Easter Flower,
Easter Hymn, Easter Music, Easter Night,
Easter Ode, Easter Song, An Easter Song,
Easter Week, The Ecchoing Green, 8-8,
Elegy for April and September, Elixir (Dance Mix),
The Elms, The Empty Places, Endless Beginning,
The End of Summer, End of Winter in Long Island,
Les enfants The Enthusiast: An ode, Envoy,
Ephemeris, Episode of a Night in May,
Especially when the October wind,
Esthetique du Mal, Evening,
The evening darkens over, An Evening in October,
Evening on Calais Beach, Evening on the Marshes,
Evil, Expecting Inspiration, The Exposed Nest,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 6)

6

Faction, A Fading of the Sun, The Fair Singer,
Fair Summer droops, The Falling of the Leaves,
Fall, Leaves, Fall, Fall of Stars,
The Fall of the Leaf, Falltime, False February,
The Farmer's Bride, Fate, Father, A Father to His Son,
The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time,
The Feathers of the Willow, Februarie, February,
February: An elegy, February: A pastoral poem,
February Days, February Gems, The February Hush,
February in Rome, February Rain,
February (Saint Valentine), February's Forgotten Mitts,
February the First on the Prairies, February Twilight,
Feuilles d'Automne, Fever, The Field-Path, Fièvre,
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,
First Day of Summer, First Snow, The First Snow-Fall,
The First Week in October, Flying Over,
Flute, The Flute of Spring, For Christmas,
For Christmas Day, For My Darling,
For Now Comes Summer, For Summer-time,
For the Fallen, For You, Mother, The Fragile Season,
Francis Turner, Frayed Page Soaked in Rain,
Free Fantasia on Japanese Themes,
From a Chinese Vase, Frost at Midnight, The Frosted Pane,
Frost Tonight, The Frozen Thames, Fuji-san,
Full many a glorious moment have I seen,
The Furrow, Further in Summer than the Birds,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 7)

7

A Game of Chess, Ganesha Girl on Rankin,
Garden, The Garden, A Garden of Love, Garden Wireless,
George Edmund's Song, Gethsemane, Ghosts of Uncertainties,
The Ghost-yard of the Goldenrod,
"Girls and Boys Come out to Play",
God is Good. It is a Beautiful Night., God Smiles,
The Golden Land, Goldenrod, Good Books,
Good Friday, Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward,
Good King Wenceslas, Good Riddance, but Now What?,
Granite Grasses, The Gravedigger, 

The Great Matter, The Great Willows, A Greek Idyl, 

Green, The Green Book of the Bards, Green Boughs, 

The Green Door, The Green Roads, Green Things Growing, 

Grey Days, The Grotto, ground zero,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 8)

8

Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en in a Suburb, The Happy Tree,
Harvest, Harvest Dust, The Harvest Moon,
Haunted Houses, The Haunted Palace,
The Hawk, Heart Winter, Heat, Heat in the City,
Heaven's Man, The Height of Land, Hendecasyllabics,
Hero, High Flight, A High-Toned Old Christian Woman,
Hockey War, A Holiday, The Holly and the Ivy,
Home Thoughts, from Abroad, Horatian Ode 1.9,
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm,
The Housewife: Winter Afternoon, How Do I Love Thee?,
how far away it was, How He Died,
How like a winter hath my absence been, How Sleep the Brave,
How soon will all my lovely days be over,
How Spring Came (to the Lake Region),
How true love is likened to summer,
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (IV-V), The Hunter, The Huron Carol,
Hurrahing in Harvest, Hymn, A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior,
The Hymn to May, Hymn to the Month of September,

[continued]

Penny's Blog (s 9)

9

I Am Not Yours, I can remember, The Ice Storm,
Icicle Drops, The Idlers, If —,
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
If you must love me, let it be for nought,
If Winter Remain, If you were a Rose and I were the Sun,
I Have a Rendezvous with Death, I Hear America Singing,
I heard a bird sing, I know I am but summer to your heart,
I Like Americans, I Like Canadians,
I lived with visions for my company,
I Loved a Lass, I loved you when the tide of prayer,
I love to see the summer beaming forth, I Met the Rain,
Immoral, Impression: Le Reveillon, Impressions,
Improvisations on the Flute, In a drear-nighted December,
In a Garden, In Apple Time, In April, In a September Night,
In a Suburb, Inaugural Poem, In August, In Autumn,
In Autumn's Dreamy Ear, In a Winter Wood, In a Wood,
Indian Summer, An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie,
Indifference?, In Early May, In February,
In Flanders Fields, In Fountain Court, In July,
In June, In June and Gentle Oven, in Just-spring,
In March, In May, In Memoriam (Easter 1915),
In Memory of a Happy Day in February,
In my craft or sullen art, Inniskeen Road: July Evening,
In November, Insanity, In September, In Spring,
In Summer, In Summer Time, In the Bleak Mid-Winter,
In the Fields, In the Garden, In the Gardens of Shushan,
In the Glad Month of May, In the High Hills, In the Shadows,
In the slant sunlight of the young October, The Intruder,
In Violet Light, Invitation to the Voyage, In Young July,
I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming
        Emptiness,
I So Liked Spring, I Speak Your Name, It came upon the midnight clear,
i thank You God for most this amazing,
I Thought of You, It Is Not Always May,
It is the day when he was born, It Is Winter, I Know,
It shall be, then, upon a summer's day,
It sifts from Leaden Sieves, It's September, It Was upon,
I would I were the glow-worm, thou the flower,

[continued]