2 poems on summer's end / Emily Dickinson

[1536]

There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away –


[1572]

We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh  –

~~

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"We wear our sober Dresses when we Die" courtesy Audiobook Passion.

Also read: As imperceptibly as Grief

Emily Dickinson biography

Rondel for September / Karle Wilson Baker

Rondel for September

You thought it was a falling leaf we heard:
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet;
A sound so reticent it scarcely stirred
The ear, so still a message to repeat, —
"I go, and lo, I make my going sweet."
What wonder you should miss so soft a word?
You thought it was a falling leaf we heard:
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet.

With slender torches for her service meet
The golden-rod is coming; softer slurred
Midsummer noises take a note replete
With hint of change; who told the mocking-bird?
I knew it was the Summer's gypsy feet —
You thought it was a falling leaf we heard.

~~
Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960)
from Blue Smoke: A book of verses, 1919

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

Karle Wilson Baker biography

The Day is a Poem / Robinson Jeffers

The Day is a Poem

(September 19, 1939)

This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we heard his voice.
A man of genius: that is, of amazing
Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child's soul,
Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child
Wailing in Danzig, invoking destruction and wailing at it.
Here, the day was extremely hot: about noon
A south wind like a blast from hell's mouth spilled a slight rain
On the parched land, and at five a light earthquake
Danced the house, no harm done. Tonight I have been amusing myself
Watching the blood-red moon droop slowly
Into black sea through bursts of dry lightning and distant thunder.
Well, the day is a poem; but too much
Like one of Jeffers's, crusted with blood and barbaric omens,
Painful to excess, inhuman as a hawk's cry.

~~
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), 1941
from The Double Axe, and other poems, 1948 

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

"The Day is a Poem" read by Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers biography

September / Lucy Maud Montgomery

September

Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days
Gleaned by the year in autumn’s harvest ways,
With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember,
Some crimson poppy of a late delight
Atoning in its splendor for the flight
Of summer blooms and joys ­–
This is September.

~~
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
from The Watchman, and other poems, 1916

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

Lucy Maud Montgomery biography

On an Apple-Ripe September Morning / Patrick Kavanagh

On an Apple-Ripe September Morning

On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In cassidy’s haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight

To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.

And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused
The best job at the mill
with plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.

Maybe Mary might call round . . .
And then I came to the haggard gate
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Tarry Flynn, 1948

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

Composed upon Westminster Bridge / William Wordsworth

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

~~
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
from Poems in Two Volumes, 1807

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

Penny's Top 20 / August 2019

Penny's Top 20
The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in August 2019:

  1.  7/16/69, George J. Dance
  2.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Break Break Break, Alfred Tennyson

  4.  Beach Song, Pearl Andelson Sherry
  5.  "I Thought of You" / On the Dunes, Sara Teasdale
  6.  By the Sea, Christina Rossetti
  7.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
  8.  The Wind Sleepers, H.D.
  9.  By the Sea, Emily Dickinson
10.  August, Lizette Woodworth Reese

11.  On the Road to the Sea, Charlotte Mew
12.  August, Dorothy Parker
13.  Angel Standing in the Sun, AE Reiff
14.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
15.  News. AE Reiff
16.  The Reader, Wallace Stevens
17.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
18.  I love to see the summer beaming forth, John Clare
19.  Vowels, Arthur Rimbaud
20.  The Intruder, Grace Stone Coates

Source: Blogger, "Stats"