Love is not all / Edna St. Vincent Millay

XXX

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.

~~
Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1930)
from Fatal Interview, 1931

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Edna St. Vincent Millay biography

"Love is not all" read by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Courtesy awetblckbough.

Rain after a Vaudeville Show / Stephen Vincent Benét

Rain after a Vaudeville Show

The last pose flickered, failed. The screen's dead white
Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light
Stabbing the eyes; and as I stumbled out
The curtain rose. A fat girl with a pout
And legs like hams, began to sing "His Mother".
Gusts of bad air rose in a choking smother;
Smoke, the wet steam of clothes, the stench of plush,
Powder, cheap perfume, mingled in a rush.
I stepped into the lobby  — and stood still
Struck dumb by sudden beauty, body and will.
Cleanness and rapture — excellence made plain —
The storming, thrashing arrows of the rain!
Pouring and dripping on the roofs and rods,
Smelling of woods and hills and fresh-turned sods,
Black on the sidewalks, gray in the far sky,
Crashing on thirsty panes, on gutters dry,
Hurrying the crowd to shelter, making fair
The streets, the houses, and the heat-soaked air, —
Merciful, holy, charging, sweeping, flashing,
It smote the soul with a most iron clashing! . . .
Like dragons' eyes the street-lamps suddenly gleamed,
Yellow and round and dim-low globes of flame.
And, scarce-perceived, the clouds' tall banners streamed.
Out of the petty wars, the daily shame,
Beauty strove suddenly, and rose, and flowered. . . .
I gripped my coat and plunged where awnings lowered.
Made one with hissing blackness, caught, embraced,
By splendor and by striving and swift haste —
Spring coming in with thunderings and strife —
I stamped the ground in the strong joy of life!

~~
Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)
from Young Adventure: A book of poems, 1918

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

Stephen Vincent Benét biography

"Rain After a Vaudeville Show" read for The Verse Place.

Like Rain it sounded till it curved / Emily Dickinson

Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I knew 'twas Wind —
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand —
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
That was indeed the Rain —
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road —
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad —
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Dickinson biography

"Like Rain it sounded till it curved" read by Chris Quinlan.

Courtesy Melbourne Musos Drum Show.

A Rainy Day in April / Francis Ledwidge

A Rainy Day in April

When the clouds shake their hyssops, and the rain
Like holy water falls upon the plain,
'Tis sweet to gaze upon the springing grain
And see your harvest born.

And sweet the little breeze of melody
The blackbird puffs upon the budding tree,
While the wild poppy lights upon the lea
And blazes 'mid the corn.

The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail,
And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail.
And Spring all radiant by the wayside pale
Sets up her rock and reel.

See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold,
Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold.
Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold,
The spinning world her wheel.

~~
Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
from Songs of the Fields, 1916

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

Francis Ledwidge biography

"A Rainy Day in April" read for Audiobook Passion.

After Rain / Archibald Lampman

After Rain

For three whole days across the sky,
In sullen packs that loomed and broke,
With flying fringes dim as smoke,
The columns of the rain went by;
At every hour the wind awoke;
The darkness passed upon the plain;
The great drops rattled at the pane.

Now piped the wind, or far aloof
Fell to a sough remote and dull;
And all night long with rush and lull
The rain kept drumming on the roof:
I heard till ear and sense were full
The clash or silence of the leaves,
The gurgle in the creaking eaves.

But when the fourth day came  – at noon,
The darkness and the rain were by;
The sunward roofs were steaming dry;
And all the world was flecked and strewn
With shadows from a fleecy sky.
The haymakers were forth and gone,
And every rillet laughed and shone.

Then, too, on me that loved so well
The world, despairing in her blight,
Uplifted with her least delight,
On me, as on the earth, there fell
New happiness of mirth and might;
I strode the valleys pied and still;
I climbed upon the breezy hill.

I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop,
Sole shadow on the shining world;
I saw the mountains clothed and curled,
With forest ruffling to the top;
I saw the river's length unfurled,
Pale silver down the fruited plain,
Grown great and stately with the rain.

Through miles of shadow and soft heat,
Where field and fallow, fence and tree,
Were all one world of greenery,
I heard the robin ringing sweet,
The sparrow piping silverly,
The thrushes at the forest's hem;
And as I went I sang with them.

---
Archibald Lampman
From Lyrics of Earth, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

"After Rain". Courtesy shortpoetry.

Penny's Top 20 - April 2011

The 20 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during April 2011:

  1. Red Lipped Stranger, Will Dockery

  2. Lorelei's Song, Heinrich Heine

  3. Daily News, George Dance

  4. Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, Wallace Stevens

  5. Angel's Song

  6. Mars & Avril, George Dance

  7. Lucky Penny, George Dance

  8. Spring Scene / Chūn Wàng,  Tu Fu

  9. Songs, Demonspawn

10. A Villanelle is Difficult to Write

11. Wheat Field Concerts

12. how far away it was, Ray Heinrich

13. The Bridge at Flatline

14. Orbits

15. Puella Parvula, Wallace Stevens

16. 8-8. David Rutkowski

17. There is a Wild and Mysticated Wood, Tom Hendricks

18. The Day Charles Bukowski Died, Gary Frankfurth

19. Spleen, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

20. The Great Matter, Obsidian Eagle

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Penny's Top 20 - March 2011

The 20 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during March 2011:

  1.  Mars & Avril, George Dance
  2.  Penny (or Penny's Hat) , George Dance
  3.  Spring Scene / Chūn Wàng, Tu Fu
  4.  The Playing / Le Jeu, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
  5.  A light exists in Spring, Emily Dickinson

  6.  Esthétique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  7.  Vowels / Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud
  8.  Petit the Poet, Edgar Lee Masters
  9.  March, George Dance
10. Romance Novel, Arthur Rimbaud

11.  Winter Uplands, Archibald Lampman
12.  Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself, Wallace Stevens
13.  On the Grasshopper and Cricket, John Keats
14.  Winter Nightfall, Robert Bridges
15.  Men Made Out of Words, Wallace Stevens

16.  Departure, Edna St. Vincent Millay
17.  Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, Wallace Stevens
18.  The Skaters, John Gould Fletcher
19.  Icicle Drops, Arthur J. Lockhart
20. I Am Not Yours, Sara Teasdale


Based on Blogger "Stats".