Much in Little / Yvor Winters

Much in Little 

Amid the iris and the rose,
The honeysuckle and the bay,
The wild earth for a moment goes
In dust or weed another way.

Small though its corner be, the weed
Will yet intrude its creeping beard;
The harsh blade and the hairy seed
Recall the brutal earth we feared.

And if no water touch the dust
In some far corner, and one dare
To breathe upon it, one may trust
The spectre on the summer air:

The risen dust alive with fire,
The fire made visible, a blur
Interrate, the pervasive ire
Of foxtail and of hoarhound burr.

~~
Yvor Winters (1900-1968)
from The Giant Weapon, 1943

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Yvor Winters biography

Angel Standing in the Sun / AE Reiff

Angel Standing in the Sun

It came about a sun all blazing bright

had showered gold into the heart of man,

as clouds transparent sprung with golden light

like wings of angel’s gold through blood then ran.

And shining out in glory still like light

a being light-radiant of golden man,

whose living passion like a redding sun,

with bright and fragrant flames of gold had run.

To you in whom all gold has been perfected,

First Begotten of the fire and flood,

My heart is raised to your sole light protected,

Blaze there thou Dayman in the fiery blood.

My thought is ever sprung from one desire,

That please you to burn sole within this fire.

~~
AE Reiff, 1972

from The True Light that Lights, 2020

[All rights reserved by the author - Used with permission]

AE Reiff biography

Calmly We Walk through This April's Day / Delmore Schwartz

Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day 

Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn ...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)

(This is the school in which we learn ...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn ...)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(... that time is the fire in which they burn.)

Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
                                     No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

~~
Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
from In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, 1938

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Delmore Schwartz biography

"Calmly We Walk through This April Day" read by AllegedSuccess.

All Things Burn / Goodridge MacDonald

All Things Burn

All things burn; burning white
snow consumes sun, alight
in grey, this December day:
— Never is the burning done.

At the street end, smoulder plumes
of poplar (and smoke-heavy hair
weighs upon hungry fingers ) — smoke
of ash-white limbs.

Burn, burn, O fiery feet, to brand
memorial minutes, for a wind
awakes, that will disperse
dust from the burning about the universe.

~~
Goodrige MacDonald (1897-1967)
from Recent Poems, 1957

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Goodridge MacDonald biography

When the World is Burning / Ebenezer Jones

When the World is Burning

When the world is burning,
Fired within, yet turning
  Round with face unscathed;
Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
O'er all lands leap, crushing,    
  Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
Up amidst the meadows,
Gently through the shadows,
  Gentle flames will glide,
Small, and blue, and golden.
Though by bard beholden,
When in calm dreams folden,—
  Calm his dreams will bide.

Where the dance is sweeping,
Through the greensward peeping,
  Shall the soft lights start;
Laughing maids, unstaying,
Deeming it trick-playing,
High their robes upswaying,
  O'er the lights shall dart;
And the woodland haunter
Shall not cease to saunter
  When, far down some glade,
Of the great world's burning,
One soft flame upturning
Seems, to his discerning,
  Crocus in the shade.

~~
Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)
from the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ebenezer Jones biography

On Summer / George Moses Horton

On Summer

Esteville begins to burn;
   The auburn fields of harvest rise;
The torrid flames again return,
   And thunders roll along the skies.

Perspiring Cancer lifts his head,
   And roars terrific from on high;
Whose voice the timid creatures dread;
   From which they strive with awe to fly.

The night-hawk ventures from his cell,
   And starts his note in evening air;
He feels the heat his bosom swell,
   Which drives away the gloom of fear.

Thou noisy insect, start thy drum;
   Rise lamp-like bugs to light the train;
And bid sweet Philomela come,
   And sound in front the nightly strain.

The bee begins her ceaseless hum,
   And doth with sweet exertions rise;
And with delight she stores her comb,
   And well her rising stock supplies.

Let sportive children well beware,
   While sprightly frisking o’er the green;
And carefully avoid the snare,
   Which lurks beneath the smiling scene.

The mistress bird assumes her nest,
   And broods in silence on the tree,
Her note to cease, her wings at rest,
   She patient waits her young to see.

~~

George Moses Horton (?1797-1884)

from Poems by a Slave, 1837

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Moses Horton biography