October / Robert Bridges

October

April adance in play
    met with his lover May
    where she came garlanded.
The blossoming boughs o’erhead
    were thrill’d to bursting by
    the dazzle from the sky
    and the wild music there
    that shook the odorous air.

Each moment some new birth
    hasten’d to deck the earth
    in the gay sunbeams.
Between their kisses dreams:
    And dream and kiss were rife
    with laughter of mortal life.

But this late day of golden fall
    is still as a picture upon a wall
    or a poem in a book lying open unread.
    Or whatever else is shrined
when the Virgin hath vanishèd:
    Footsteps of eternal Mind
    on the path of the dead.

~~
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
from October, and other poems, 1920

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

"October" read by ThatKidsMom for LibriVox. Courtesy The Literary Shelf: Six.

(Poem begins at 0:00)

[November]

Robert Bridges biography

Summer's Farewell / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Summer's Farewell

All in the time when Earth did most deplore
   The cold, ungracious aspect of young May,
Sweet Summer came, and bade him smile once more;
   She wove bright garlands, and in winsome play
   She bound him willing captive. Day by day
She found new wiles wherewith his heart to please;
   Or bright the sun, or if the skies were gray,
They laughed together, under spreading trees,
By running brooks, or on the sandy shores of seas.

They were but comrades. To that radiant maid
   No serious word he spake; no lovers’ plea.
Like careless children, glad and unafraid,
   They sported in their opulence of glee.
   Her shining tresses floated wild and free;
In simple lines her emerald garments hung;
   She was both good to hear, and fair to see;
And when she laughed, then Earth laughed too, and flung
His cares behind him, and grew radiant and young.

One golden day, as he reclined beneath
   The arching azure of enchanting skies,
Fair Summer came, engirdled with a wreath
   Of gorgeous leaves all scintillant with dyes.
   Effulgent was she; yet within her eyes,
There hung a quivering mist of tears unshed.
   Her crimson-mantled bosom shook with sighs;
Above him bent the glory of her head;
And on his mouth she pressed a splendid kiss, and fled.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Experience, 1910

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

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

Mars & Avril / George J. Dance

Mars & Avril

Mars the Brat marched in with the melting snow,
blew around town, whistling at all the chicks
and trying to lift up every second skirt;
Mars, that crazy, schizophrenic Brat,
one minute waterbombing us for kicks,
next minute grabbing some poor sucker's hat
to fling it like a gauntlet in the dirt
while in his eyes a killing cold would show.

Then Avril flew in like a vernal breeze
and though the Brat dissed that girl's style of bling –
her flowers, rainbows, birds in blossomed trees –
she made him laugh, and cry, and even sing,
and slowly, gently as a meadow breathes,
the Brat went down, disarmed by love in spring.

~~
George J. Dance, 2007
from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

   Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Venus and Mars, ca. 1485. Public domain, Wikipedia Commons