Penny's Top 100 of 2010 (91-100)

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during 2010:

91. Christmas Bells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
92. The Oxen, Thomas Hardy
93. The Flute of Spring, Bliss Carman
94. Let No Charitable Hope, Elinor Wylie
95. Minstrels, William Wordsworth

96. The Darkling Thrush, Thomas Hardy
97. Old Christmas, Mary Howitt
98. Things, Aline Kilmer
99. If I should learn, in some quite casual way, Edna St. Vincent      
        Millay
100. Spring Breaks in Foam, Charles G.D. Roberts

Counting down Penny's Top 100

      For the next ten days, I'll be taking a short break from posting poetry. I need one. I've posted a poem every day for the past two months, with great results in attracting new readers to The Penny Blog.  Penny and I wish to assure those new readers, and our other regulars, that there will be no shortage of poetry to read over this time. Here is what we will be doing:

      Those who know me know that I'm a chart person; I have been since I was a lad, sitting at the transistor copying down the top 40 every Saturday. Last May I began making a chart here – Penny's Top 20 – covering the most-read poems on  The Penny Blog each month; the idea being to bring new titles to readers who might be unfamiliar with them. That idea included a Top 100 of the year in January, a time that has now arrived. 

      I expect, though, that merely giving a list of 100 poems would cause many readers to just skim, or even skip, it. That's what I'd do. And so we're going to count it down, just like a top 40 station. Each day for the next ten days, we will present a live-linked list of ten poems, starting with 91-100 and finishing with 1-10 in ten days. 

      Readers are encouraged to pick one poem from the ten, click through, and read. I hope that each list has at least one new poem for everyone. If you find and would rather read an old favourite, though, that is fine with us. Our only hope is that  you enjoy the countdown. 

No Possum, No Sop, No Taters / Wallace Stevens

 
No Possum, No Sop, No Taters

He is not here, the old sun,
As absent as if we were asleep.

The field is frozen. The leaves are dry.
Bad is final in this light.

In this bleak air the broken stalks
Have arms without hands. They have trunks

Without legs or, for that, without heads.
They have heads in which a captive cry

Is merely the moving of a tongue.
Snow sparkles like eyesight falling to earth,

Like seeing fallen brightly away.
The leaves hop, scraping on the ground.

It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,
Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,
The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

It is here, in this bad, that we reach
The last purity of the knowledge of good.

The crow looks rusty as he rises up.
Bright is the malice in his eye . . .

One joins him there for company,
But at a distance, in another tree.

---
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), 1943
from Transport to Summer, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Wallace Stevens biography

"No Possum, No Sop, No Taters" read by Tom Reads.

Winter Field / A.E. Coppard

Winter Field

Sorrow on the acres,
    Wind in the thorn,
And an old man plowing
    Through the frosty morn.

 A flock of the dark birds,
    Rooks and their wives,
Follow the plow team
    The old man drives;

And troops of starlings,
    A-tittle-tat and prim,
Follow the rooks
    That follow him.

---
A.E. Coppard (1878-1957)
from Pelagea, and other poems,  1926

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

A.E. Coppard biography

The Sky is low / Emily Dickinson

   

[1924]

    
The Sky is low –
the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake
of Snow
Across a Barn
or through a Rut
Debates if it will go –

A Narrow Wind
complains all Day
How some one treated
him
Nature, like Us
is sometimes caught
Without her
Diadem –

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Dickinson biography

"The Sky is Low" read by Hans Ostrom. Courtesy Hans Ostrom.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky / Alfred Tennyson

        
CIV

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
     The flying cloud, the frosty light:
     The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
     Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
     The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
     For those that here we see no more;
     Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
     And ancient forms of party strife;
     Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
     The faithless coldness of the times;
     Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
     The civic slander and the spite;
     Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
     Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
     Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
     The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
     Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

"Ring out wild bells to the wild sky" read by Peter O'Shaughnessy. Courtesy Release - Topic.

Penny's Top 20 - December 2010

The 20 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during December, 2010, ranked in order: 

    1. Esthétique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
    2. December, George J. Dance
    3. Penny (or Penny's Hat), George J. Dance
    4. Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, Wallace Stevens
    5. A Scroll, George J. Dance

    6. Autumn Song, George J. Dance
    7. September Night, George J. Dance
    8. A Christmas Greeting, Walt Whitman
    9. When Mary the Mother kissed the Child, Charles G.D. Roberts
  10. Snow, Madison Cawein

  11. O Holy Night / Minuit, chrétiens, Placide Cappeau
  12. Mars & Avril, George J. Dance
  13. After the Winter, Claude McKay
  14. Mistletoe, Walter de la Mare
  15. The Oxen, Thomas Hardy

  16. Christmas Bells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  17. Minstrels, William Wordsworth
  18. The Darkling Thrush, Thomas Hardy
  19. Old Christmas, Mary Howitt
 20. Ceremonies for Christmas, Robert Herrick