Morning on the Lièvres / Archibald Lampman

Morning on the Lièvres

Far above us where a jay
Screams his matins to the day,
Capped with gold and amethyst,
Like a vapour from the forge
Of a giant somewhere hid,
Out of hearing of the clang
Of his hammer, skirts of mist
Slowly up the woody gorge
Lift and hang.

Softly as a cloud we go,                
Sky above and sky below,
Down the river, and the dip
Of the paddles scarcely breaks,
With the little silvery drip
Of the water as it shakes              
From the blades, the crystal deep
Of the silence of the morn,
Of the forest yet asleep,
And the river reaches borne
In a mirror, purple grey,              
Sheer away
To the misty line of light,
Where the forest and the stream
In a shadow meet and plight,
Like a dream.                          

From amid a stretch of reeds,
Where the lazy river sucks
All the water as it bleeds
From a little curling creek,
And the muskrats peer and sneak        
In around the sunken wrecks
Of a tree that swept the skies
Long ago,
On a sudden seven ducks
With a splashy rustle rise,            
Stretching out their seven necks,
One before, and two behind,
And the others all arow,
And as steady as the wind
With a swivelling whistle go,
Through the purple shadow led,
Till we only hear their whir
In behind a rocky spur,
Just ahead.

 ~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 1886
from Among the Millet, and other poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

Archibald Lampman biography

"Morning on the Lievre" read by George Whalley, 1961. Courtesy National Film Board.

(Poem begins at 5:00)

Twenty-old and Seven-wild / Annie Campbell Huestis

Twenty-old and Seven-wild

O Twenty, running through the wood!
     Where friendly leaves and grasses stir,
Where airs are sweet and trees are strong,
     And hiding birds call out to her,
And every little timid thing
That creeps within the woods to sing
     Seems just to have a voice for her.

O Twenty, running through the wood!
     A woman grown, and yet a child!
Now in the sun, now in the shade —
     The wild gone out to meet the wild.
And who can say life is not sweet
To eager eyes and fearless feet
     To Twenty-old and Seven-wild.

She leaves the quiet road that winds
     Its pretty way the whole wood through
And makes a pathway for herself,
     As who at Twenty would not do?
Unseen and seen, the wind and she
Go through the bush and round the tree —
     Go roving 'round and singing through.

Such pleasure just to lose herself!
     O Seven-wild! O Twenty-old!
The shadows stealing from the night
     Tread measures strange with gleams of gold.
And Mayflowers lift their faces pink:—
Now who could look at them and think
     Of being young or being old?

O Twenty, running through the wood!
     Its wildness has a power to still;
The voices low from rock and twig
     The silences with music thrill,—
And suddenly she silent grows,
And, searching out the path she knows,
     Turns back — but carries home the thrill.

~~
Annie Campbell Huestis (1876-1960)
from A Treasury of Canadian Verse, 1915

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

Annie Campbell Huestis biography 

In Summer Time / Paul Laurence Dunbar

In Summer Time

When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,– then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and pathways part,–
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,–
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night –
Unheeding nibble, run, or bite ,–
Just for the joy of being there
And drinking in the summer air,
The summer sounds, and summer sights,
That set a restless mind to rights
When grief and pain and raging doubt
Of men and creeds have worn it out;
The birds' song and the water's drone,
The humming bees' low monotone,
The murmur of the passing breeze,
And all the sounds akin to these,
That make a man in summer time
Feel only fit for rest and rhyme.
Joy springs all radiant in my breast;
Though pauper poor, than king more blest,
The tide beats in my soul so strong
That happiness breaks forth in song,
And rings aloud the welkin blue
With all the songs I ever knew.
O time of rapture! time of song!
How swiftly glide thy days along
Adown the current of the years,
Above the rocks of grief and tears!
'Tis wealth enough of joy for me
In summer time to simply be.

~~
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
from Oak and Ivy, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Laurence Dunbar biography

"In Summer Time" read by Graham Sillars. Courtesy Graham Sillars Reads Books.

Penny's Top 20 / July 2015

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

  1.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  2.  Tell All the World, Harry Kemp
  3.  Spoils of the Dead, Robert Frost
  4.  Summer Schemes, Thomas Hardy
  5.  The Poplars, Bernard Freeman Trotter
  6.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens 
  7.  Two Summer Days, Mary Mapes Dodge
  8.  Dejeuner sur l'herbe, Edith Sitwell
  9.  My Heart is a Lute, Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Lindsay
10.  A Summer Mood, Hamlin Garland

11.  A Song for Canada, Agnes Maule Machar
12.  In June and Gentle Oven, Anne Wilkinson
13.  The River, Frederick George Scott
14.  Summer Song, William Carlos Williams
15.  Landscape in Two Colours..., Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau 
16.  Vigil, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
17.  Accompaniment, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
18.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
19.  The Ecchoing Green, William Blake
20.  In the High Hills, Maxwell Struthers Burt


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

The Poplars / Bernard Freeman Trotter

The Poplars

O, a lush green English meadow – it's there that I would lie  –
A skylark singing overhead, scarce present to the eye,
And a row of wind-blown poplars against an English sky.

The elm is aspiration, and death is in the yew,
And beauty dwells in every tree from Lapland to Peru;
But there s magic in the poplars when the wind goes through.

When the wind goes through the poplars and blows them silver white,
The wonder of the universe is flashed before my sight:
I see immortal visions: I know a god's delight.

I catch the secret rhythm that steals along the earth,
That swells the bud, and splits the burr, and gives the oak its girth,
That mocks the blight and canker with its eternal birth.

It wakes in me the savor of old forgotten things,
Before "reality" had marred the child s imaginings:
I can believe in fairies – I see their shimmering wings.

I see with the clear vision of that untainted prime,
Before the fool's bells jangled in and Elfland ceased to chime,
That sin and pain and sorrow are but a pantomime –

A dance of leaves in ether, of leaves threadbare and sere,
From whose decaying husks at last what glory shall appear
When the white winter angel leads in the happier year.

And so I sing the poplars; and when I come to die
I will not look for jasper walls, but cast about my eye
For a row of wind-blown poplars against an English sky.

~~
Bernard Freeman Trotter (1890-1917)
From A Canadian Twilight, and other poems of war and peace, 1917

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

Bernard Freeman Trotter biography

Felix Pissarro (1874-1897), Poplar Trees. Wikimedia Commons.

A Summer Mood / Hamlin Garland

A Summer Mood

Oh, to be lost in the wind and the sun,
  To be one with the wind and the stream!
With never a care while the waters run,
  With never a thought in my dream.
To be part of the robin’s lilting call
  And part of the bobolink’s rhyme.
Lying close to the shy thrush singing alone,
  And lapped in the cricket’s chime!

Oh, to live with these beautiful ones!
  With the lust and the glory of man
Lost in the circuit of springtime suns —
  Submissive as earth and part of her plan;
To lie as the snake lies, content in the grass!
  To drift as the clouds drift, effortless, free,
Glad of the power that drives them on,
  With never a question of wind or sea.

~~
Hamlin Garland (1860-1940)
from Prairie Songs, 1893

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

Hamlin Garland biography

Déjeuner sur l'herbe / Edith Sitwell

Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Green apples dancing in a wash of sun —
Ripples of sense and fun —
A net of light that wavers as it weaves
The sunlight on the chattering leaves;
The half-dazed sound of feet,
And carriages that ripple in the heat.
The parasols like shadows of the sun
Cast wavering shades that run
Across the laughing faces and across
Hair with a bird-bright gloss.
The swinging greenery casts shadows dark,
Hides me that I may mark
How, buzzing in this dazzling mesh, my soul
Seems hardening it to flesh, and one bright whole.
O sudden feathers have a flashing sheen!
The sun's swift javelin
The bird-songs seem, that through the dark leaves pass;
And life itself is but a flashing glass.

~~
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
from Clowns' Houses, 1918

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

Edith Sitwell biography