Episode of a Night in May / Arthur Symons

from Scènes de la Vie de Bohème

I.  Episode of a Night in May

J'aime la nuit, 1910  (detail).

Wikimedia Commons.

The coloured lanterns lit the trees, the grass,
The little tables underneath the trees,
And the rays dappled like a delicate breeze
          Each wine-illumined glass.

The pink light flickered, and a shadow ran
Along the ground as couples came and went;
The waltzing fiddles sounded from the tent,
          And Giroflée began.

They sauntered arm in arm, these two; the smiles
Grew chilly, as the best spring evenings do.
The words were warmer, but the words came few,
          And pauses fell at whiles.

But she yawned prettily. "Come then," said he.
He found a chair, Veuve Clicquot, some cigars.
They emptied glasses and admired the stars,
          The lanterns, night, the sea,

Nature, the newest opera, the dog
(So clever) who could shoulder arms and dance;
He mentioned Alphonse Daudet's last romance,
          Last Sunday's river-fog,

Love, Immortality; the talk ran down
To these mere lees: they wearied each of each,
And tortured ennui into hollow speech,
          And yawned, to hide a frown.

She jarred his nerves; he bored her — and so soon.
Both were polite, and neither cared to say
The word that mars a perfect night of May.
          They watched the waning moon.

~~
Arthur Symons (1865-1945)
from Days and Nights, 1889

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

Arthur Symons biography

Blind / Harry Kemp

Blind

Cumberland Market, London

The Spring blew trumpets of color;
Her Green sang in my brain —
I heard a blind man groping
"Tap — tap" with his cane;

I pitied him in his blindness;
But can I boast, "I see"?
Perhaps there walks a spirit
Close by, who pities me, —

A spirit who hears me tapping
The five-sensed cane of mind
Amid such unguessed glories —
That I am worse than blind.

~~
Harry Kemp (1883-1960)
From Chanteys and Ballads, 1920

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

Harry Kemp biography

Sacrament / Louise Morey Bowman

Sacrament

To My Mother 

I cannot talk of her:
She's everywhere —
In the Spring trees' soft blooming,
In the air
That's filled with bird songs,
In a symphony,
Or golden throbbing of an organ prayer.
She's with me when I serve
Some hungry one with food.
She's with me when I'm dressed
In some gay, dainty frock for very best.
Whose colour puts me in a dancing mood.
When I write, read, or play my violin,
I hear her singing to me deep within.
She made a sacrament of life; and, hidden there,
She reaches out from God's eternity,
To touch all bread and wine
Of mine.

~~
Louise Morey Bowman (1882-1944)
from Moonlight and Common Day, 1922

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

Louise Morey Bowman biography

Spring in the Shops / Bert Leston Taylor

Spring in the Shops

In the manner of Ezra Pound 

Will people accept them? (i.e. these bargains)
O dainty colorings and range of prices!
Gowns of charmeuse in all the colors of the season;
Blouse suits of Russian cloth, tucked belt of softest satin,
And only $37.50.

Beautiful but inexpensive hats (values unprecedented).
Lovely French flowers combined
With handsome ribbon or numidi, roses, lilacs, wistaria, in beautiful colorings.

And petticoats, in crepe de chine and chiffon.
The petticoat oddly cut and gored,
That holds its fullness just below the knee,
And yet puffs out above,
Giving the new and fashionable outline.
Soft petticoats of sheerest voile, opened on side with clasps, in straight effect,
Silk jersey tucked and plaited ruffle, with underlay of same,
Special at $1.95.

~~
Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921)
from Motley Measures, 1913

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

Bert Leston Taylor biography

The World Well Lost / Ethelwyn Wetherald

The World Well Lost

My one dark love shall fix the day,
     The solemn day when we shall wed;
Nor know I if on green or gray,
     On winter white or autumn red,

My happy bridal moon shall rise,
     Nor which of all the blossoming Mays
Shall wreathe the gates of Paradise
     Upon my dark love’s day of days.

But this I know:  her steps will be
     Like rose-leaves falling from the rose,
Her eyes a fathomless strange sea
     To which my stream of being flows.

And this I know:  her lips will rest
     As lightly on the drowsing lid
As leafy shadows on the breast
     Of some sweet grave all flower-hid.

In some sweet grave all flower-hid
     A thousand times the blooms of May
Shall visit us the leaves amid,
     When my love, Death, has named the day.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The Last Robin, 1907

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

Any Woman / Hazel Hall

Any Woman

When there is nothing left but darkness
And the day is like a leaf
Fallen onto sodden grasses,
You have earned a subtle grief.

Never let them take it from you,
Never let them come and say:
Night is made of black gauze; moonlight
Blows the filmy dark away.

You have a right to know the thickness
Of the night upon your face,
To feel the inky blue of nothing
Drift like ashes out of space.

You have a right to lift your fingers
And stare in pity at your hands
That are the exquisite frail mirrors
Of all the mind misunderstands.

Your hand, potent in portrayal,
Falls of its own weight to rest
In a quiet curve of sorrow
On the beating of your breast.

~~
Hazel Hall (1886-1924)
from Cry of Time, 1929

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

Hazel Hall biography

Penny's Top 20 / April 2015

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in April 2015:

  1.  Woodman, spare that tree!, George P. Morris
  2.  Away from Town, Harry Kemp
  3.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  4.  Sonnet (Violets), Alice Dunbar-Nelson
  5.  An Easter Song, Richard Le Gallienne
  6.  Song of a Second April, Edna St. Vincent Millay
  7.  Accompaniment, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
  8.  Lilies and Violets, Mary Gilmore
  9.  April Again, James Lewis Milligan
10.  As We Go On, Maxwell Struthers Burt

11.  April Aubade, Sylvia Plath
12.  Two Tramps in Mud Time, Robert Frost
13.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens 
14.  Winds of May, James Joyce
15.  Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon, Bliss Carman
16.  Olympian Ode 14, Pindar
17.  Vowels / Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud
18.  Let No Charitable Hope, Elinor Wylie
19.  Tichborne's Elegy, Chidiock Tichborne
20.  From a Chinese Vase, Winnifred Welles

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