How Sleep the Brave / William Collins

Ode

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

~~
William Collins (1721-1759), 1746 

from Poems, 1898

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Collins biography

"How Sleep the Brave" read by Joshua David Robinson. Courtesy  Lincoln’s Cottage .

The Poet in June / M.P.A. Crozier

The Poet in June

'Tis bliss to have the poet's heart
That loves the quietude of things,
Where nature smiles her bidden rocks,
And brings out sweet and cooling springs.

The June-green grass beneath my feet,
The dandelion's disk of gold,
The corn's slim spire just pushing out
From clean brown beds of kindly mold.

Bid welcome as I pass along
The harvest way across the lea;
While songs of birds are in my soul.
And eyes of flowers make love to me.

Down in the meadow's gliding stream
The children splash their snowy feet,
And all their laughter comes to me
Across the fields of growing wheat.

~~
M.P.A. Crozier (1834-1912)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

M.P.A. Crozier biography

Ian S, Leeds County Way toward Biggin Farm, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

February Days / Ellwood Roberts

February Days

The icy northern blast sweeps by,
    From wild wastes of the Arctic snow;
Above us droops a wintry sky,
    A bleak white landscape lies below.
But, 'neath the chilly Polar blast,
    A low, sweet undertone I hear:
"The wintry storms will soon be past,
    And pleasant Spring-time days are near."

In Winter's stern and icy grasp,
    Are river, pond, and rill, to-day;
Like iron bonds his fetters' clasp,
    Like despot's rule his frosty sway.
But only yesterday I heard —
    Though all the landscape was so drear —
The sweet voice of a lonesome bird:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."

The air is icy, keen and chill,
    All Nature lies in sleep profound,
That seems like death—so cold, so still —
    But flowers are biding underground.
The sun mounts up, from day to day,
    His beams each morn more full of cheer.
And to our hearts they seem to say:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."

The ice and snow will soon be gone,
    The Spring-time waits the sun's warm rays,
Already we can trace the dawn
    Of brighter, warmer, sweeter days.
Each morn we watch for signs of Spring,
    Each evening feel its coming near.
All Nature's voices seem to sing:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."

And though an Arctic wind sweeps by
    From wildest wastes of ice and snow,
And though above us wintry sky,
    And desolate white fields below —
Beneath the wind's wild organ-blast,
    A low, sweet undertone I hear:
"The wintry storms will soon be past,
    The sunny Spring-time days are near."

~~
Ellwood Roberts (1846-1921)
From Lyrics of Quakerism, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ellwood Roberts biography

Vyacheslav Argenberg, Don River in Ice, Rostov, 2012. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

With trembling fingers did we weave / Alfred Tennyson

XXX

With trembling fingers did we weave
    The holly round the Chrismas hearth;
    A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall
    We gambol'd, making vain pretence
    Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech
    We heard them sweep the winter land
    And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;
    We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
    A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
    Upon us: surely rest is meet:
    "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;
    Once more we sang: “They do not die
    Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail
    With gather'd power, yet the same,
    Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil."

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
    Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
    O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Marching Men / Marjorie Pickthall

Marching Men

Under the level winter sky
I saw a thousand Christs go by.
They sang an idle song and free
As they went up to calvary.

Careless of eye and coarse of lip,
They marched in holiest fellowship.
That heaven might heal the world, they gave
Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave.

With souls unpurged and steadfast breath
They supped the sacrament of death.
And for each one, far off, apart,
Seven swords have rent a woman's heart.

~~
Marjorie L.C. Pickthall
from The Wood Carver's Wife, and later poems, 1922

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

 Marjorie Pickthall biography

The time draws near the birth of Christ / Alfred Tennyson

XXVIII

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
     The moon is hid; the night is still;
     The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
     From far and near, on mead and moor,
     Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
     That now dilate, and now decrease,
     Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
     I almost wish'd no more to wake,
     And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
     For they controll'd me when a boy;
     They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule,

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Verses Written in the Spring / Ann Batten Cristall(s 1)

from Verses Written in the Spring

From yon fair hill, whose woody crest
The mantling hand of spring has dress'd,
Where gales imbibe the May-perfume,
And strew the blushing almond's bloom,
I view the verdant plains below,
And lucid streams which gently flow;
The opening foliage, drench'd with showers,
Weeps o'er the odorous vernal flowers;
And while before my temper'd eye
From glancing clouds swift shadows fly,
While nature seems serene and bless'd,
And inward concord tunes my breast,
I sigh for those by fortune cross'd,
Whose souls to Nature's charms are lost.

~~
Ann Batten Cristall (1769-1848)
from Poetical Sketches, 1795

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Anne Batten Cristall biography
Read the complete poem here

A Christmas Carol / Aubrey de Vere

A Christmas Carol

They leave the land of gems and gold,
    The shining portals of the East;
For Him, the woman's Seed foretold,
    They leave the revel and the feast.

To earth their sceptres they have cast,
    And crowns by kings ancestral worn;
They track the lonely Syrian waste;
    They kneel before the Babe new born.

O happy eyes that saw Him first;
    O happy lips that kissed His feet:
Earth slakes at last her ancient thirst;
    With Eden's joy her pulses beat.

True kings are those who thus forsake
    Their kingdoms for the Eternal King;
Serpent, her foot is on thy neck;
    Herod, thou writhest, but canst not sting.

He, He is King, and He alone
    Who lifts that infant hand to bless;
Who makes His mother's knee His throne,
    Yet rules the starry wilderness.

~~

Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814-1902)

from Christmas: Its origin, celebration and significance as related in prose and verse, 1907

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Aubrey Thomas de Vere biography

To-night ungather'd let us leave / Alfred Tennyson

CIV

To-night ungather'd let us leave
     This laurel, let this holly stand:
     We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas eve.

Our father's dust is left alone
     And silent under other snows:
     There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.

No more shall wayward grief abuse
     The genial hour with mask and mime;
     For change of place, like growth of time,
Has' broke the bond of dying use.

Let cares that petty shadows cast,
     By which our lives are chiefly proved,
     A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.

But let no footstep beat the floor,
     Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
     For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
     Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
     No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east

Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
     Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
     Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

To the October Wind / Ethelwyn Wetherald

To the October Wind

Old playmate, showering the way
   With thick leaf storms in red and gold,
I’m only six years old to-day,
   You’ve made me feel but six years old.
In yellow gown and scarlet hood
   I whirled, a leaf among the rest,
Or lay within the thinning wood,
   And played that you were Red-of-breast.

Old comrade, lift me up again;
   Your arms are strong, your feet are swift,
And bear me lightly down the lane
   Through all the leaves that drift and drift,
And out into the twilight wood,
   And lay me softly down to rest,
And cover me just as you would
   If you were really Red-of-breast.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The House of the Trees, and other poems, 1895

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald 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.

New Year's Morning / Helen Hunt Jackson

New Year’s Morning

 Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year’s heart all weary grew,
But said: “The New Year rest has brought.”
The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but, trusting, said:
“The blossoms of the New Year’s crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead.”
The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: “I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year’s generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife.”
Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

 Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from Poems, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

The Road Not Taken / Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from Mountain Interval, 1916

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

Robert Frost biography

September / Ethelwyn Wetherald

September

But yesterday all faint for breath,
     The Summer laid her down to die;
And now her frail ghost wandereth
     In every breeze that loiters by.
Her wilted prisoners look up,
    As wondering who hath broke their chain.
Too deep they drank of summer’s cup,
     They have no strength to rise again.

How swift the trees, their mistress gone,
     Enrobe themselves for revelry!
Ungovernable winds upon
     The wold are dancing merrily.
With crimson fruits and bursting nuts,
     And whirling leaves and flushing streams,
The spirit of September cuts
     Adrift from August’s languid dreams.

A little while the revelers
     Shall flame and flaunt and have their day,
And then will come the messengers
     Who travel on a cloudy way.
And after them a form of light,
     A sense of iron in the air,
Upon the pulse a touch of might
     And winter’s legions everywhere.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The House of the Trees, and other poems, 1895

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

Ethelwyn Wethera ld biography

August / A.C. Swinburne

August

There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.

The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the cloven veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.

There were four apples on the tree,
Red stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.

The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Thirsted for song to help the heat;
As I to feel my lady’s feet
Draw close before the day were done;
Both lips grew dry with dreams of it.

In the mute August afternoon
They trembled to some undertune
Of music in the silver air;
Great pleasure was it to be there
Till green turned duskier and the moon
Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair.

That August time it was delight
To watch the red moons wane to white
’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees;
A sense of heavy harmonies
Grew on the growth of patient night,
More sweet than shapen music is.

But some three hours before the moon
The air, still eager from the noon,
Flagged after heat, not wholly dead;
Against the stem I leant my head;
The colour soothed me like a tune,
Green leaves all round the gold and red.

I lay there till the warm smell grew
More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew
Between the round ripe leaves had blurred
The rind with stain and wet; I heard
A wind that blew and breathed and blew,
Too weak to alter its one word.

The wet leaves next the gentle fruit
Felt smoother, and the brown tree-root
Felt the mould warmer: I too felt
(As water feels the slow gold melt
Right through it when the day burns mute)
The peace of time wherein love dwelt.

There were four apples on the tree,
Gold stained on red that all might see
The sweet blood filled them to the core:
The colour of her hair is more
Like stems of fair faint gold, that be
Mown from the harvest’s middle floor.

~~
A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)
from Poems and Ballads, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

A.C. Swinburne biography

The Canadian Rossignol (In May) / E.W. Thomson

The Canadian Rossignol (In May)

When furrowed fields of shaded brown,
     And emerald meadows spread between,
And belfries towering from the town,
     All blent in wavering mists are seen;
When quickening woods with freshening hue
     Along Mount Royal rolling swell,
When winds caress and May is new,
     Oh, then my shy bird sings so well!

Because the bloodroots flock so white,
     And blossoms scent the wooing air,
And mounds with trillium flags are dight,
     And dells with violets frail and rare;
Because such velvet leaves unclose,
     And new-born rills all chiming ring,
And blue the sun-kissed river flows,
     My timid bird is forced to sing.

A joyful flourish lilted clear,
     Four notes, then fails the frolic song,
And memories of a sweeter year
     The wistful cadences prolong;—
“A sweeter year — Oh, heart too sore!—
     I cannot sing!”— So ends the lay.
Long silence. Then awakes once more
     His song, ecstatic with the May.

~~
E.W. Thomson (1849-1924)
from The Many-Mansioned House, and other poems, 1909

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

E.W. Thomson biography

Fate / Patrick MacGill

Fate 

The cloudwrack o'er the heaven flies,
     The wild wind whistles on the lake,
     The drooping branches in the brake
Mourn for the pale blue butterflies.

Where is the sheen of green and gold?
     The sullen Winter's beard is hoar,
     Where are the fruits the Autumn bore?
We know not, who are growing old.

We pulled the dainty flowers of spring,
     But we were happy being young –
     And now when Autumn's knell is rung
We wither 'neath the vampire wing.

~~

Patrick MacGill (1889-1963)

from Songs of a Navvy, 1911

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

Patrick MacGill 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

There Was a Time / George J. Dance

There Was a Time

There was a time my love and I
Would lie upon the summer grass,
To watch the white clouds wander by
In heaven, and their shadows pass.

The sun poured down like honey then,
The breezes cooled like morning dew,
And life was more magnificent
Than either of us ever knew.

My love was once like sparkling wine
And now she tastes of wholesome bread,
Her flavors faded – so have mine –
But we are both completely fed.

It's quite enough that she is here
Beside me every hour and day,
But more than that, each passing year,
There's time to take my love away

Into a meadow, where we'll lie
Together on the summer grass,
To watch the white clouds wander by
In heaven, and the shadows pass.

~~

George J. Dance, 2017
from Logos, and other logoi, 2021
 

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

George J. Dance biography

Summer Days / W.M.W. Call

Summer Days

In summer, when the days were long,
We walk’d, two friends, in field and wood;
Our heart was light, our step was strong,
And life lay round us, fair as good,
In summer, when the days were long.

We stray’d from morn till evening came,
We gather’d flowers, and wove us crowns;
We walk’d mid poppies red as flame,
Or sat upon the yellow downs,
And always wish’d our life the same.

In summer, when the days were long,
We leap’d the hedgerow, cross’d the brook;
And still her voice flow’d forth in song,
Or else she read some graceful book,
In summer, when the days were long.

And then we sat beneath the trees,
With shadows lessening in the noon;
And in the sunlight and the breeze
We revell’d, many a glorious June,
While larks were singing o’er the leas.

In summer, when the days were long,
We pluck’d wild strawberries, ripe and red,
Or feasted, with no grace but song,
On golden nectar, snow-white bread,
In summer, when the days were long.

We lov’d, and yet we knew it not,
For loving seem’d like breathing then;
We found a heaven in every spot;
Saw angels, too, in all good men,
And dream’d of gods in grove and grot.

In summer, when the days are long,
Alone I wander, muse alone;
I see her not, but that old song
Under the fragrant wind is blown,
In summer, when the days are long.

Alone I wander in the wood,
But one fair spirit hears my sighs;
And half I see the crimson hood,
The radiant hair, the calm glad eyes,
That charm’d me in life’s summer mood.

In summer, when the days are long,
I love her as I lov’d of old;
My heart is light, my step is strong,
For love brings back those hours of gold,
In summer, when the days are long.

 ~~
W.M.W. Call (1817-1890) 
from A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895, 1895 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

W.M.W. Call biography