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.

A July Dawn / John Francis O'Donnell

A July Dawn

We left the city, street and square,
    With lamp lights glimmering through and through,
And turned us toward the suburb, where –
    Full from the east – the fresh wind blew.

One cloud stood overhead the sun –
    A glorious trail of dome and spire –
The last star flickered, and was gone;
    The first lark led the matin choir.

Wet was the grass beneath our tread,
    Thick-dewed the bramble by the way;
The lichen had a lovelier red,
    The elderflower a fairer grey.

And there was silence on the land,
    Save when, from out the city's fold,
Stricken by time's remorseless wand,
    A bell across the morning tolled.

The beeches sighed through all their boughs;
    The gusty pennons of the pine
Swayed in a melancholy drowse,
    But with a motion sternly fine.

One gable, full against the sun,
    Flooded the garden-space beneath
With spices, sweet as cinnamon,
    From all its honeysuckled breadth.

Then crew the cocks from echoing farms,
    The chimney tops were plumed with smoke,
The windmill shook its slanted arms,
    The sun was up, the country woke!

And voices sounded mid the trees
    Of orchards red with burning leaves,
By thick hives sentineled by bees –
    From fields which promised tented sheaves;

Till the day waxed into excess,
    And on the misty rounding grey –
One vast, fantastic wilderness,
    The glowing roofs of London lay.

~~

John Francis O'Donnell (1837-1874) 

from Poems, 1891 

John Francis O'Donnell biography

John Constable (1776-1837), Dawn, ca. 1831. Google Art Project, Wikimedia Commons.

Dawn in the June Woods / William Wilfred Campbell

Dawn in the June Woods

When over the edge of night
    The stars pale one by one,
And out of his streams of light
    Rising, the great red sun

Lifteth his splendors up
    Over the hush of the world,
And draining night's ebon cup,
    Leaveth some stars impearled,

Still on its crystal rim,
    Fading like bubbles away,
As out of their cloud-meadows dim,
    The dawn winds blow in this way;

Then bathed in cool dewy wells,
    Old longings of life renew,
Till here in these morning dells
    The dreamings of earth come true;

As up each sun-jewelled slope.
    Over the night-hallowed land.
Wonder and Beauty and Hope
    Walk silently hand in hand.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918)
from Lake Lyrics, and other poems, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wilfred Campbell biography

 Jason Jenkins, Universal Gradient (8558087317), 2013. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Nothing Gold Can Stay / Robert Frost

Antti Pääkkönen, Fallen Maple Leaf, 2016.

 CC 1.0 public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from New Hampshire, 1923

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

Robert Frost biography

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" from The Outsiders. Courtesy Creekmonsters.

(Poem begins at 0:40)

A September Morning in Nebraska / C.M. Barrow

A September Morning in Nebraska

The sun has not yet risen, but his golden glow,
    Lights up the misty portals of the far off east;
The wavering shadows o’er the prairies come and go,
    And all the eerie sounds of night have ceased.

Nature’s own songsters, from the cotton trees,
    Fill all the languorous air with melody.
The corn fields rustle in the gentle morning breeze,
    And from the coming dawn the night-mist flees.

Anon a golden disc appears to view,
    Afar, o’er shimmering seas of grass and corn —
Like diamonds shine the myriad drops of dew,
    Up flies the lark, another day is born.

~~
C.M. Barrow
from Discover Poetry 

The Sun Rising / John Donne

The Sun Rising

                Busy old fool, unruly sun,
                Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
                Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
                Late school boys and sour prentices,
        Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
        Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

                Thy beams, so reverend and strong
                Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
                If her eyes have not blinded thine,
                Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
        Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
        Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

                She's all states, and all princes, I;
                Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
                Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
                In that the world's contracted thus.
        Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
        To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

~~
John Donne (1572-1631)
from Poems, 1633

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Donne biography

At the Gates of Dawn / George J. Dance

At the Gates of Dawn

(a cento)

Night prowls, scratches sand, & then pads on,
the gnomes are sleeping in their gnomish homes,
when darkness is increased by 1, to 7
& from the icy waters underground

a scarlet eagle rises, shining gold
on all. Floating down, the light resounds
blindingly – flap flicker flicker / Blam pow pow –

& all the land is lime & limpid green.
Amidst the grass, dandelions thrive.
Buttercups cup the light in the foggy dew.

Change, return, success, going & coming,
nothing can be destroyed once & for all:
Look at the sun, look at the sky, look at the river
lazily winding, finding its way to sea.

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

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Lies through a Lens, A Pink Sunrise Disturbs the Quiet of the Blue Hour, Wareham UK, 2015.

CC BY, 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

George J. Dance biography

Also read: A Midwinter Night's Eve

Composed upon Westminster Bridge / William Wordsworth

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

~~
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
from Poems in Two Volumes, 1807

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

Impression: Le Reveillon / Oscar Wilde

Impression: Le Reveillon

The sky is laced with fitful red,
The circling mists and shadows flee,
The dawn is rising from the sea,
Like a white lady from her bed.

And jagged brazen arrows fall
Athwart the feathers of the night,
And a long wave of yellow light
Breaks silently on tower and hall,

And spreading wide across the wold
Wakes into flight some fluttering bird,
And all the chestnut tops are stirred,
And all the branches streaked with gold.

---
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
from Poems, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Oscar Wilde biography

Sunrise / Charles E.S. Wood

The lean coyote, prowler of the night,
Slips to his rocky fastnesses.
Jackrabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush,
And, from the castellated cliffs,
Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day.
The wild horses troop back to their pastures.
The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches.
Orioles, whose nests sway in the cotton-wood trees by the ditch-side,     begin to twitter.
All shy things, breathless, watch
The thin white skirts of dawn,
The dancer of the sky,
Who trips daintily down the mountain-side
Emptying her crystal chalice. . . .
And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar's top
His exultant whip above silver world.

---
Charles E.S. Wood (1852-1944)
from The Poet in the Desert, 1915

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

Charles E.S. Wood biography

The Furrow / Charles G.D. Roberts

 
The Furrow

How sombre slope these acres to the sea
And to the breaking sun! The sun-rise deeps
Of rose and crocus, whence the far dawn leaps,
Gild but with scorn their grey monotony.
The glebe rests patient for its joy to be.
Past the salt field-foot many a dim wing sweeps;
And down the field a first slow furrow creeps,
Pledge of near harvests to the unverdured lea.

With clank of harness tramps the serious team--
The sea air thrills their nostrils. Some wise crows
Feed confidently behind the ploughman's feet.
In the early chill the clods fresh cloven steam,
And down its griding path the keen share goes:
So, from a scar, best flowers the future's sweet.

---
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)
from Songs of the Common Day, and Ave!, 1893

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

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

The Masterpiece of Dawn / Leslie Moon

The Masterpiece of Dawn

Blues, grays, streaks of burgundy
Fine lines, broad strokes etch the sky
The artist's work in motion

Light infuses and excites the eye
Bold ochres, ambers, crimsons splash the canvas
The haughty orb rises into place

Satisfied the palette in repose
Another masterpiece hung
Behold the master's colorful array of splendor

~~
Leslie Moon (moondustwriter)
California, U.S.A.

Moondustwriter's Blog:
http://moondustwriter.com/

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