August's featured poem

   

The Penny Blog's featured  poem for August 2026:

August, by Annette Wynne

August days are hot and still,

Not a breath on house or hill

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2020/08/august-annette-wynne.html

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.

From Piccadilly in August / John Freeman

Arthur Hacker (1858-1919), A Wet Night at 

Piccadilly Circus, 1910. Wikimedia Commons.

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

"From Piccadilly in August" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

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.

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 

"August 1918" read by Nemo for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

(Poem begins at 21:00)

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

Long Island Sound / Emma Lazarus

Long Island Sound

I see it as it looked one afternoon
In August,— by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown.
The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,
A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn,
The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,
The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.
The luminous grasses, and the merry sun
In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp
Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,
Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep
Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.

~~
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
from Poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emma Lazarus biography

"Long Island Sound" read by Elena Faverio. Courtesy EastLine Theatre.

August / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

August

(From the German)

Gerda Arendt, Apple tree in field, Ehrenbach

(detail). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Once, with a landlord wondrous fine,
    A weary guest, I tarried;
A golden pippin was his sign,
    Upon a green branch carried!

Mine host — he was an apple-tree
    With whom I took my leisure;
Fair fruit, and mellowed juicily,
    He gave me from his treasure.

There came to that same hostel gay
    Bright guests, in brave adorning;
A merry feast they made all day,
    And sang, and slept till morning.

I, too, to rest my body laid
    On bed of crimson clover;
The landlord with his own broad shade
    Carefully spread me over.

I rose; — I called to pay the score,
    But "No!" he grandly boweth;
Now, root and fruit, for evermore
    God bless him, while he groweth!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), 1884

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[September]

Edwin Arnold biography

August / George J. Dance

August

Sun-hardened earth
waits panting for the first crack
of thunder,

~~
George J. Dance, 2007

from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015

["August" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 International License]

Dominicus Johannes Bergsma, Under the influence of sun and wind torn earth (detail).

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[September]

George J. Dance biography

Evening / Katherine Hale

from The Island

Evening

An August evening,
Pale-blue and silver and the moon ahead,
And the canoe, if you should turn it westward,
Glazed to a lacquer red.

We had set up our house:
A fireplace of the island stone,
And a mat of moss,
A tent, and a balsam bed,
And a table made of a pine.

And through the twilight’s fading line
We paddled far down the bay
To look at the place so far away
Where the inns and the tourists belong,
The place we had left so hurriedly
When we heard the sound of a song.

Being established in magic,
Householders you might say,
It was safe enough to glance at the past
From our supernatural bay.

But then we went fishing instead!
And something reached out of the twilight,
Something so old and magnetic
Something so sure and prevailing
It seemed we might better obey —
For a song has a certain conviction
Heard at the end of the day.

~~
Katherine Hale (1878-1956)
from The Island, and other poems, 1934

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

Katherine Hale biography

Michael Klajban, Secretary Island, British Columbia (detail), 2018. 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

August Moon / J.C. Squire

August Moon

(To F.S.)

In the smooth grey heaven is poised the pale half moon
And sheds on the wide grey river a broken reflection.
Out from the low church-tower the boats are moored
After the heat of the day, and await the dark.

And here, where the side of the road shelves into the river
At the gap where barges load and horses drink,
There are no horses. And the river is full
And the water stands by the shore and does not lap.

And a barge lies up for the night this side of the island,
The bargeman sits in the bows and smokes his pipe
And his wife by the cabin stirs. Behind me voices pass.

Calm sky, calm river: and a few calm things reflected.
And all as yet keep their colours; the island osiers,
The ash-white spots of umbelliferous flowers,
And the yellow clay of its bank, the barge's brown sails
That are furled up the mast and then make a lean triangle
To the end of the hoisted boom, and the high dark slips
Where they used to build vessels, and now build them no more.

All in the river reflected in quiet colours.
Beyond the river sweeps round in a bend, and is vast,
A wide grey level under the motionless sky
And the waxing moon, clean cut in the mole-grey sky.
Silence. Time is suspended; that the light fails
One would not know were it not for the moon in the sky,
And the broken moon in the water, whose fractures tell
Of slow broad ripples that otherwise do not show,
Maturing imperceptibly from a pale to a deeper gold,
A golden half moon in the sky, and broken gold in the water.

In the water, tranquilly severing, joining, gold:
Three or four little plates of gold on the river:
A little motion of gold between the dark images
Of two tall posts that stand in the grey water.

There are voices passing, a murmur of quiet voices,
A woman's laugh, and children going home.
A whispering couple, leaning over the railings,
And, somewhere, a little splash as a dog goes in.

I have always known all this, it has always been,
There is no change anywhere, nothing will ever change.

I heard a story, a crazy and tiresome myth.

Listen! behind the twilight a deep low sound
Like the constant shutting of very distant doors,

Doors that are letting people over there
Out to some other place beyond the end of the sky.

~~
J.C. Squire (1884-1958)
from Poems: First series, 1918

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

J.C. Squire biography

Oliver H, Moon on Rance River, August 2014 (detail). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

August Child / Marion Strobel

August Child

Harold Harvey (1874–1941), Two young girls

 with a butterfly, 1929. Wikimedia Commons.

She would watch a butterfly
Yellow-filmed against the sun,
Blue against the sky.

She would keep the broken wings –
There were gold ones, there was one
Brown with scarlet rings.

And no matter if the heat
Ran like flame upon the land,
She was there, and sweet.

Color moving, color drifting
Was her yellow dress. Her hand
Was color lifting.

 
With the sky more blue than blue,
She was more and less than true,
Who was always more than fair
Butterflied upon the air.

~~
Marion Strobel (1895-1967)
from Poetry, February 1928

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

Marion Strobel biography

August's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for August 2024:

The Beach in August, by Weldon Kees

The day the fat woman

In the bright blue bathing suit

Walked into the water and died,

I thought about the human

Condition. 

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-beach-in-august.html

Further in Summer than the Birds / Emily Dickinson

Rushikesh R. Mule, Indian birds, 2015. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[895]

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A gentle Custom it becomes –
Enlarging Loneliness –

Antiquest felt at Noon –
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify –

Remit as yet no Grace –
No furrow on the Glow,
But a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now –

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Dickinson biography

"Further in Summer than the Birds" read by Maris Juwono.

August / H. Cordelia Ray

from The Procession of the Seasons

August

    Haste to the mighty ocean,
    List to the lapsing waves;
With what a strange commotion
    They seek their coral caves.
From heat and turmoil let us oft return,
The ocean's solemn majesty to learn.

~~
H. Cordelia Ray (1852-1916)
from Poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[September]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

DiscoA340, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, August 2022 (detail).

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

August Noonday / Henry Tyrrell

August Noonday

The murmurings of earth are quieted;
    The woods are still, the streamlets voiceless glide;
    A mist lies languid on the mountain side,
Where all the hot and fainting clouds have fled
From heaven's infinitude. The lily's head
    Droops 'neath the ardent gaze of summertide,
    And in the cooling shadows seek to hide
The sleepy flowers of the garden bed.
The air is tranced, and Nature lies a-dreaming:
    Even the ripples on the lake, that move
    At scarce a breath, now are becalmed. Above,
Around, beneath, is but the drowsy seeming
Of smoky skies, and dim red sunlight streaming.
    All is at rest. Why sleepless thou, O Love ?

~~
Henry Tyrrell (born 1859)
from Through the Year with the Poets, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Henry Tyrrell biography

David Lucas (1802-1881) after John Constable (1776-1837), Noon, 1830. Wikimedia Commons.

The Year Hath Reached Its Afternoon / Samuel Minturn Peck

The Year Hath Reached Its Afternoon

The laughing flights of song are still
    That charmed the springtide air;
Down rivulet and grassy rill    
    No wayward perfumes fare;
Upon her throne Queen August lies
With languor in her dreamful eyes.

The idle clouds that stray the blue
    Their mission now forget;
A blended note the wood-doves coo
    Of passion and regret;
The sparrows flute a faded tune;
The year hath reached its afternoon.

The cricket clears his dusty throat
    To sing an eerie strain;
And as he pipes with rusty note
    Of beauty soon to wane,
The red rose trembles on the tree
With prescience of the fate to be.

Samuel Minturn Peck (1854-1938)

from Through the Year with the Poets, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Samuel Minturn Peck biography

Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter (1660–1711), Allegory of Autumn (detail), Wikimedia Commons.