September Idyl / Arthur Symons

September Idyl: In the Hammock: Chameane. 

A sky of green and gold, tremulous, delicate,
Starred with pale blue, and bright with little voices; wind
Lifting the golden outer fringe, autumn has thinned;
A yellow leaf drops rustling, and another: wait,
The leaves begin to whisper, and the voices cease:
I hear the silence; but a voice flutters again,
A little, fluting voice, soft, piercing, as the rain;
I close my eyes, and all my body sways with peace.
Delicate, tremulous, seen under eyelids closed,
The sky of green and gold sways over me, and seems
To fill the languid soul with the desire of dreams;
But the sky fades, and only inner eyelids, rosed
With filtered sunlight falling, shadow as they pass
Not even dreams; until a trailing hand perceives,
Sudden, the earth again, in the crisp touch of leaves,
And the arresting slender fingers of the grass.

~~
Arthur Symons (1865-1945)
from Poems, 1902

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

Arthur Symons biography

The trees have never seemed so green / Robert Hillyer

from Days and Seasons

IX

The trees have never seemed so green
Since I remember,
As in these groves and gardens of September,
And yet already comes the chill
That bodes the world's last garden ill,
And in the shadow I have seen
A spectre,— even thine,
O Vandal, O November.
The wind leaps up with sudden screams
In gusts of chaff.
Two boys with blowing hair listen and laugh.
We hear the same wind, they and I,
Under the dark autumnal sky;
It blows strange music through their dreams.
Keenly it blows through mine,
Singing their epitaph.

~~

Robert Hillyer (1895-1961)

from The Five Books of Youth, 1920 

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

Robert Hillyer biography

Penny's Top 20 / August 2015

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

  1.  Autumn, Walter de la Mare
  2.  Bear Mountain Morning
  3.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  4.  She Sleeps Tight, Will Dockery
  5.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens 
  6.  Morning on the Lièvres, Archibald Lampman
  7.  Garden, H.D.
  8.  The Summer Sea, Nathan Haskell Dole
  9.  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, William Shakespeare
10.  Twenty-old and Seven-wild, Annie Campbell Huestis

11.  In Summer Time, Paul Lawrence Dunbar
12.  Velardena Sunset, Grace Hazard Conkling
13.  In the Fields, Charlotte Mew
14.  The Soul of Summer, Edward Sapir
15.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme
16.  Spring Morning, A.A. Milne
17.  The Darkling Thrush, Thomas Hardy
18.  The Old Year, John Clare
19.  Defeat, Constance Woodrow
20.  Fall, Leaves, Fall, Emily Brontë


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Doggerel, and other doggerel: new collection by George J. Dance

George J. Dance, proprietor of  The Penny Blog and the Penny's Poetry Pages wiki, is pleased to announce the publication of his first poetry collection, Doggerel, and other doggerel.

Doggerel contains roughly 50 short poems, written over 44 years (1972-2015). The book also contains translations of works by Tu Fu ("Spring Scene"), Arthur Rimbaud ("Romance Novel," "Sensation," "Vowels"), and Heinrich Heine ("Lorelei's Song").

Poems that can be sampled on  The Penny Blog include "Spring Again," "Round the Mercury," "Mars & Avril," "May," "Only the Lonely," "June," "Lucky Penny," "July," and "Light of Day."

Doggerel, and other doggerel is published by Lulu.com. For a substantial discount, you now have the option to order the book at Amazon.com as well.

Update, January 2025: Logos and other logoi, the companion volume to Doggerel and other doggerel, is now also on sale at Amazon.com. 

In the Fields / Charlotte Mew

In the Fields

             Lord when I look at lovely things which pass,
                Under old trees the shadow of young leaves
                Dancing to please the wind along the grass,
Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves;
      Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?
                                   And if there is
               Will the heart of any everlasting thing
      Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?
They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent of hay,
                     Over the fields. They come in spring.

~~

Charlotte Mew (1869-1928)

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

Charlotte Mew biography

"In the Fields" read by Philip. Courtesy The Voice Poetic.

The Soul of Summer / Edward Sapir

The Soul of Summer

Incessant chatter of blackbirds over the flags,
Sinuous falls of the swallows and sudden turns,
Short flights, preoccupied, of the robin mothers —
This is the living summer, this is summer.

The fine dust drifts in the torpid air, sluggish —
A faint-blue shadow veil hung before green,
A dry hush on the grass stalks, on the corn stalks —
Lazy dust-drift of the heavy summer.

This is summer fulfilled, this is the summer
Of waiting wings, still wings in passionate tremor.
This is the summer when torpor blossoms to storms
And throbbing wings burst out to the height of the wind.

I too know the summer, I know the summer
Of light poured on the soft white of her neck;
I know the hair that flashed in the summer sun.    
I know the summer whose laughter pierced my heart.

~~
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
from Poetry, August 1919

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

Edward Sapir biography

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / William Shakespeare

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

~~
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from Shakespeare's Sonnets (London: John Lane, 1899)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"Sonnet 18" read by Lorna Laidlaw. Courtesy BBC.

William Shakespeare biography
Shakespeare's Sonnets
Analysis of Sonnet 18