April Weather / Edith Wyatt

April Weather

If you could have a perfect day
    To dream of when your life were done,
Would you choose one all clear, all gay —
    If you could have a perfect day —
The airs above the wide green way      
    Sheer virgin blue with crystal sun?—
If you could have a perfect day
    To dream of when your life were done.

Or would you have it April’s way,
    Haphazard rain, haphazard sun,      
Divine and sordid, clear and gray,
    Dyed like these hours’ own work and play;
All shot with stains of tears and clay,
    Haphazard pain, haphazard fun —
If you could have a perfect day      
    To dream of when your life were done?

~~

Edith Wyatt (1873-1958)

from Poetry, January 1915

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

Edith Wyatt biography

A Miracle / George J. Dance

A Miracle

For them the blessed oil still burned!
Through black of eight long winter nights,
when unto Zion they returned,
for them the blessed oil still burned –
A miracle we all have learned –
That sweet return! Those wondrous lights!
For them the blessed oil still burned
through black of eight long winter nights.

~~
George J. Dance, 2017

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Photo by Holly Merkur-Dance, 2021. All rights reserved  - used with permission.. 

George J. Dance biography

The Poplar in August / Frances Cornford

The Poplar in August

Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
Shivering and bending,
Have you shade for dusty feet,
Poplar, poplar, in the heat?
Shade is cool and sleep is sweet,

And roads unending.
Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
Shivering and bending.

~~
Frances Cornford (1886-1960)
From Poems, 1910

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

Frances Cornford biography

Winter in Durnover Field / Thomas Hardy

Winter in Durnover Field 

Scene.--A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull grey.

Rook: Throughout the field I find no grain;
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
Starling: Aye: patient pecking now is vain
Throughout the field, I find . . .
Rook:                                                    No grain!
Pigeon: Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,
Or genial thawings loose the lorn land
Throughout the field.
Rook:                                I find no grain:
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Poems of the Past and Present, 1901

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

Thomas Hardy biography