October / Robert Frost

October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost —
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from A Boy's Will, 1913

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

Robert Frost biography

"October" read by Ranno Kasemaa. Courtesy TEC Creative.

Penny's Top 20 / September 2015

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

  1.  Song at Summer's End, A.R.D. Fairburn
  2.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  3.  Autumn Dawn, Charles Hamilton Sorley
  4.  September Idyl: In the hammock, Arthur Symons
  5.  Summer Rain, John Davidson
  6.  Autumn, Francesca Rios
  7.  The trees have never seemed so green, Robert Hillyer
  8.  The Summer Rain, John Askham
  9.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens 
10.  September 1913, William Butler Yeats

11.  The End of Summer, Madison Cawein
12.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
13.  Sensation, Arthur Rimbaud
14.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens
15.  Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
16.  Dejeuner sur l'herbe, Edith Sitwell
17.  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, William Shakespeare
18.  News, AE Reiff
19.  Wind and Silver, Amy Lowell
20.  The Soul of Summer, Edward Sapir

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Autumn / Gladys Cromwell

Autumn

Capricious little poem and sapling rhyme
Grew on the golden hillside of my youth.
The stanzas were as crooked and uncouth
As early things are wont to be. For time
Was pressing and mid-summer's glowing prime
Was ever imminent. Mysterious truth
Was the warm soil thought sprouted from.
     Forsooth
My songs were stem and filament to climb.
But now, the memory of bud and fruit
And flower is weariness. This present week
In mid-September, wayward wild pursuit
Is over; youth fulfilled. How shall they seek
Beyond, unless from sunbeams in the skies
These listless leaves take warmer harmonies?

~~
Gladys Cromwell (1885-1919)
from The Gates of Utterance, and other poems, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Gladys Cromwell biography

"Autumn" read for Audiobook Passion.

Autumn Dawn / Charles Sorley

Autumn Dawn

And this is morning. Would you think
That this was the morning, when the land
Is full of heavy eyes that blink
Half-opened, and the tall trees stand
Too tired to shake away the drops
Of passing night that cling around
Their branches and weigh down their tops:
And the grey sky leans on the ground?
The thrush sings once or twice, but stops
Affrighted by the silent sound.
The sheep, scarce moving, munches, moans.
The slow herd mumbles, thick with phlegm.
The grey road-mender, hacking stones,
Is now become as one of them.

Old mother Earth has rubbed her eyes
And stayed, so senseless, lying down.
Old mother is too tired to rise
And lay aside her grey nightgown,
And come with singing and with strength
In loud exuberance of day,
Swift-darting. She is tired at length,
Done up, past bearing, you would say.
She'll come no more in lust of strife,
In hedges' leap, and wild birds' cries,
In winds that cut you like a knife,
In days of laughter and swift skies,
That palpably pulsate with life,
With life that kills, with life that dies.
But in a morning such as this
Is neither life nor death to see,
Only that state which some call bliss,
Grey hopeless immortality.
Earth is at length bedrid. She is
Supinest of the things that be:
And stilly, heavy with long years,
Brings forth such days in dumb regret,
Immortal days, that rise in tears,
And cannot, though they strive to, set.

~~
Charles Sorley (1895-1915)
from Marlborough, and other poems, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Charles Sorley biography

Autumn / Francesca Rios

Autumn

My maple tree is yellow green
Against a blue-gray sky.
In little groups of three and four
I see the restless pigeons fly.

The air is rain-washed — fresh and sweet,  
Mingled with pungent scent of pine.
Kissed by the faintest glint of sun,
Amber and bronze the poplars shine.

He knew the woods — how many times
I’ve seen him tramping in the rain,  
Singing among the trees he loved
The songs I’ll never hear again!

~~
Francesca Rios
from Poetry, November 1922

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

Song at Summer's End / A.R.D. Fairburn

Song at Summer's End

Down in the park the children play
rag-happy through the summer day
with dirty feet and freckled faces,
laughing, fighting, running races.
Dull against the smoky skies
the summer's heavy burden lies,
leaden leaves on tired trees
lacking supple limbs like these.

The skyline shows the shape of life,
tomorrow's world of sweat and strife,
fifty stacks and one grey steeple.
Down the street come factory people,
folk who used to play on swings,
dodging chores and apron-strings
to wrestle on the grass and run
barefoot with the fleeting sun.

Some of the kids are sailing boats;
the first leaf drops unheeded, floats
and dances on the muddy pond.
Shadows from the world beyond
lengthen, sprawl across the park;
day rolls onward towards the dark.
From the clock-tower, wreathed in smoke,
Time speaks gravely, stroke on stroke.

~~
A.R.D. Fairburn (1904-1957), 1947
from Strange Rendezvous: Poems, 1929-1941, with additions, 1952

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

A.R.D. Fairburn biography

The End of Summer [1914]/ Madison Cawein

The End of Summer

The rose, that wrote its message on the noon's
Bright manuscript, has turned her perfumed face
Towards Fall, and waits, heart-heavy, for the moon's
     Pale flower to take her place.

With eyes distraught, and dark disheveled hair,
The Season dons a tattered cloak of storm
And waits with Night that, darkly, seems to share
     Her trouble and alarm.

It is the close of summer. In the sky
The sunset lit a fire of drift and sat
Watching the last Day, robed in empire, die
     Upon the burning ghat.

The first leaf crimsons and the last rose falls,
And Night goes stalking on, her cloak of rain
Dripping, and followed through her haunted halls
     By ail Death's phantom train.

The sorrow of the Earth and all that dies,
And all that suffers, in her breast she bears;
Outside the House of Life she stops and cries
     The burden of her cares.

Then on the window knocks with crooked hands,
Her tree-like arms to Heaven wildly-hurled:
Love hears her crying, "Who then understands?—
     Has God forgot the world?"

~~

Madison Cawein (1865-1914)

from The Cup of Comus: Fact and fancy, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Madison Cawein biography

"The End of Summer" read for Reader's Utopia.