The Green Door / C.F. MacIntyre

The Green Door

from Rodomontades

Here in the May we danced on violets
  And blew off golden bubbles. Ah, my love,
How shall I name the sorrows and regrets
  I pluck, and the black drink I press thereof?

Now you dream deeply, wise in death’s great lore;      
  I lean above you where the crickets sing,
And fumble the dumb latch of the green door —
  You of the Maytime, lovely, wantoning.

~~
C.F. MacIntyre (1890-1967)
from Poetry, May 1920

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

C.F. MacIntyre biography

Penny's Top 20 / April 2018

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in April 2018:

  1.  Easter Song, Francis Sherman
  2.  Tardy Spring, George Meredith 
  3.  April, Ralph Waldo Emerson
  4.  April Weather,  Edith Wyatt
  5.  Insanity, Maxwell Bodenheim
  6.  Leafless April, Ethelwyn Wetherald
  7.  April, William Carlos Williams
  8.  April, Katharine Tynan
  9.  April, G.A. Studdert Kennedy
10.  The Conjurer, George J. Dance

11.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
12.  There Will Come Soft Rains, Sara Teasdale
13.  Two poems, Mark Turbyfill
14.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
15.  A Day in Spring, Richard Westall
16.  Spring's Immortality, Mackenzie Bell
17.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
18.  Green Boughs, Frank Pearce Sturm
19.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance  
20.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

April / G.A. Studdert Kennedy

April

Breath of Spring,
Not come, but coming,
In the air.
Life of earth, not lived
But living,
Everywhere.
Promises, not made,
Nor broken,
But the token
Of promises that will be made.
Sunshine seeking shade,
Red earth, that smiles,
And asks for seed,
And mossy woodland paths, that lead
To where the yellow primrose grows.
And so for many coloured miles
Of open smiling France,
While noisy little streamlets dance,
In diamond mirrored suns,
To meet the stately Mother stream that flows,
With shining dignity,
To greet her Lord the sea,
And far away, beyond the hills, one hears,
Poor village Mother, hence thy tears,
The muffled thunder of the guns.

~~
G.A. Studdert Kennedy ("Woodbine Willy") (1883-1929)
from Rough Rhymes of a Padre, 1918

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

G.A. Studdert Kennedy biography

April / Katharine Tynan

April

A black North Wind that chills
New leaves and songs scarce sung;
It was not so in Aprils
When I was young.

Thrush-notes and blackbird-trills
The blossomy boughs among;
All in the leafy Aprils
When I was young.

Showers on the heavenly hills
Rainbow and silver hung;
Such tears and smiles were April's
When I was young.

Small streams and babbling rills,
Green ways where gossamers swung;
The young lambs leaped in Aprils
When I was young.

Daisies and daffodils,
Primroses newly sprung;
Fragrant and fresh the Aprils
When I was young.

Here in this town that kills,
The heart for cold is wrung.
It's O for the happy Aprils
When I was young!

~~
Katharine Tynan (1861-1931)
from Poems, 1901

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

Katharine Tynan biography

Leafless April / Ethelwyn Wetherald

Leafless April 

Leafless April chased by light,
    Chased by dark and full of laughter,
Stays a moment in her flight
    Where the warmest breezes waft her,
By the meadow brook to lean,
    Or where winter rye is growing,
Showing in a lovelier green
    Where her wayward steps are going.

Blithesome April brown and warm,
    Showing slimness through her tatters,
Chased by sun or chased by storm —
    Not a whit to her it matters.
Swiftly through the violet bed,
    Down to where the stream is flooding
Light she flits — and round her head
    See the orchard branches budding!

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The House of the Trees, and other poems, 1895

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

"Leafless April" read by Roger Melin for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

(Poem begins at 10:49)

April / William Carlos Williams

April

If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of
lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.

~~~

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

From Sour Grapes, 1921

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

William Carlos Williams biography

"April" read for Reader's Utopia.

April Weather / Edith Wyatt

April Weather

If you could have a perfect day
    To dream of when your life were done,
Would you choose one all clear, all gay —
    If you could have a perfect day —
The airs above the wide green way      
    Sheer virgin blue with crystal sun?—
If you could have a perfect day
    To dream of when your life were done.

Or would you have it April’s way,
    Haphazard rain, haphazard sun,      
Divine and sordid, clear and gray,
    Dyed like these hours’ own work and play;
All shot with stains of tears and clay,
    Haphazard pain, haphazard fun —
If you could have a perfect day      
    To dream of when your life were done?

~~

Edith Wyatt (1873-1958)

from Poetry, January 1915

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

Edith Wyatt biography