November / Robert Frost

November

We saw leaves go to glory,
Then almost migratory
Go part way down the lane,
And then to end the story
Get beaten down and pasted
In one wild day of rain.
We heard ‘ ‘Tis over’ roaring.
A year of leaves was wasted.
Oh, we make a boast of storing,
Of saving and of keeping,
But only by ignoring
The waste of moments sleeping,
The waste of pleasure weeping,
By denying and ignoring
The waste of nations warring.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from A Witness Tree, 1942

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Robert Frost biography

Summer Holiday / Robinson Jeffers

Summer Holiday

When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the towered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain . . .

~~
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
from The Roan Stallion, Tamar, and other poems, 1925

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Robinson Jeffers biography

"Summer hiliday" read by Sam Abrams. Courtesy tournaveu poetic.

Spring among the Ruins / James Lewis Milligan

Spring among the Ruins

I've tuned my heart to Thirty Springs
     And sighed o'er Thirty Summers flown;
I've watch'd the rise and fall of things
     And stood amid the wrack alone.

And I have learned that Time and Change
     Are Nature's law, and that Decay
And Death are not so very strange,
     But follow as the Night the Day.

How many times I've paused beside
     This Mansion old and desolate,
Musing upon its Builder's pride,
     Reading its parable of Fate,

How oft I've yearn'd to set in rhyme
     The sad, mute rapture of that mood
Which holds me spell-like every time
     I pause amid this Solitude!

He came in that glad year of yore,
     (I knew him, though I was not born),
He brought his Bride unto that door —
     How fair and fragrant was the Morn!

I saw her like a Seraph white
     Steal o'er the lawn with airy tread.
And stoop to pluck the lilies light
     And kiss the roses white and red.

I watch'd her at the even's close
     Sit sewing at the window there;
Till he, on stealthy, silent toes,
     Would come and kiss Her unaware.

On many a night before the fire
     They sat and talk'd on home affairs;
Or sang a ballad to the lyre
     To ease the heart of little cares.

They greeted oft within that Hall
     Their closer friends with hearty jest;
And many a story true and "tall"
     Was spun by sleepy Host and Guest.

I saw. . . . But let the record cease
    The Sequel is too sad a theme:
By yonder Church they lie in peace
    They sleep and fancy 'twas a dream.

Again the Earth her Youth renews,
    Over is Winter's wind and rain:
But Ruin still Man's work pursues,
    Nor comes He to his haunts again.

~~
James Lewis Milligan (1876-1961)
from The Beckoning Skyline, and other poems, 1920

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

James Lewis Millgan biography

At Delos / Duncan Campbell Scott

At Delos

An iris-flower with topaz leaves
With a dark heart of deeper gold,
Died over Delos when light failed
And the night grew cold.

No wave fell mourning in the sea
Where age on age beauty had died,
For that frail colour withering away
No seabird cried.

There is no grieving in the world
As beauty fades throughout the years;
The pilgrim with the weary heart
Brings to the grave his tears.

---
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from The Circle of Affection, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

So, we'll go no more a-roving / George Gordon, Lord Byron

So, we'll go no more a-roving

So, we'll go no more a-roving
     So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
     And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
     And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
     And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
     And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
     By the light of the moon.

~~
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), 1817
from Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, 1830

[Poem is in the public domain]

Lord Byron biography

"So we'll go no more a-roving" sung by Leonard Cohen. Courtesy oKALu.