Penny's Top 20 / December 2020

 

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in December 2020:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  The World's Body, AE Reiff

  3.  Christmas Bells, Edward Capern

  4.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

  5.  Naked December have I curtained out, Charles Leonard Moore
  6.  The Autumn Sheaf, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
  7.  Autumn: An ode, John Hawkesworth

  8.  On the Winter Solstice, Mark Akenside
  9.  A Miracle, George J. Dance
10.  Under the Holly Bough, Charles Mackay

11.  The time draws near the birth of Christ, Alfred Tennyson
12.  Connecticut Autumn, Hyam Plutzik
13.  Believe It or Not, George J. Dance
14.  A Christmas Carol, J. Ashby-Sterry
15.  Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy
16.  Autumn Fires, Robert Louis Stevenson
17.  Love-songs of the Open Road, Kendall Banning

18.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme 
19.  The Sky, Elizabeth Madox Roberts

20. Bird Cage, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Penny's Top 100 of 2020

 

The 100 most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog during 2020:

  1. Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  2. The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
  3. June Rain, Richard Aldington
  4. Amarant, AE Reiff
  5. The Key, George J. Dance

  6. Dandelions, George Sulzbach
  7. You have to believe in happiness, Douglas Malloch
  8. The Plant, AE Reiff
  9. Autumn, T.E. Hulme
10. The moon and stars are making love, George J. Dance

11. Summer in the South, Paul Laurence Dunbar
12. April, George J. Dance
13. A Father to His Son, Carl Sandburg
14. The World's Body, AE Reiff
15. Sunlight, AE Reiff

16. Ode to May, Mary Darwall
17. Sweet Wild April, William Force Stead
18. Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett
19. The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff
20. Skating, William Wordsworth

21. Believe It or Not, George J. Dance
22. Winter Heat, Will Dockery
23. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick
24. Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
25. A something in a Summer's day, Emily Dickinson

26. Late Summer (Alcaics), Edwin Arlington Robinson
27. Green, Paul Verlaine
28. Over and Over Again, Antti
29. The Wild Flower's Song, William Blake
30. September, Carlos Wilcox

31. One Spring, Eda Lou Walton
32. Wind-blown, Muna Lee
33. In August, Katharine Lee Bates
34. When the Hounds of Spring, A.C. Swinburne
35. April's Fool, Will E. Cowles

36. Falltime, Carl Sandburg
37. A Rhyme for June / After the Rain, Lizette Woodworth Reese
38. A Garden of Love, Lilian Leveridge
39. A Pastoral, A. Mary F. Robinson
40. Invitation to the Voyage, Charles Baudelaire

41. January 1795, Perdita
42. Winter Rain, Christina Rossetti
43. Evening on Calais Beach, William Wordsworth
44. The Lover in April, Charles Hanson Towne
45. Midmost June, Wilfred Rowland Childe

46. Sick and sullen and sad the slow days go, H.C. Beeching
47. The Magician, Lilian Leveridge
48. Silver Filigree, Elinor Wylie
49. Avril, la Douce Esperance, Thomas Ashe
50. New Year on Dartmoor, Sylvia Plath

51. December Days, Caleb Prentiss
52. Where Once Poe Walked, H.P. Lovecraft
53. A New England June, Bliss Carman
54. Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude, Thomas Gray
55. September, George Arnold

56. Easter Hymn, A.E. Housman
57. Songs to Joannes XIII, Mina Loy
58. Summer, David Morton
59. July, George Meredith
60. February, Folgore de San Geminiano

61. At the Seaside, Robert Louis Stevenson
62. Summer to Autumn, Glenn Ward Dresbach
63. Elegy in April and September, Wilfred Owen
64. Digging, Edward Thomas

65. Verses Written in the Spring (s1), Ann Batten Cristall

66. A Winter Bluejay, Sara Teasdale

67. An April Interlude - 1917, Bernard Freeman Trotter
68. August, Annette Wynne
69. Christmas Bells, Edward Capern
70. Love's Philosophy, Percy Bysshe Shelley

71. A March Wind, Francis Sherman
72. Who Made the Law?, Leslie Coulson
73. Stanzas for Music, Lord Byron
74. Autumn It Was, William Browne
75. The Fragile Season, Yvor Winters

76. By the Autumn Sea, Paul Hamilton Hayne
77. February, Rebecca Hey
78. Autumn Communion, Gladys Cromwell
79. The Sun this March, Wallace Stevens
80. The Mocking, Goodridge MacDonald

81. But One, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
82. Naked December have I curtained out, Charles Leonard Moore
83. Summer and the Poet, William Howitt
84. To the Summer Sun, Marguerite Wilkinson 
85. Easter, Edmund Spenser

86. Autumn, W.H. Davies
87. The Autumn Sheaf, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
88. Winter Memories, Henry David Thoreau
89. November Blue, Alice Meynell
90. The Midsummer Wish, John Hawkesworth

91. August, Mary Slade
92. In September, Edward Dowden
93. November, Ethelwyn Wetherald
94. Fall of Stars, George H. Dillon
95. Winter Poetry, Gladys Cromwell

96. A Winter's Tale, Dylan Thomas
97. Goldenrod, John Banister Tabb 
98. So It Befell, Eda Lou Walton
99. Autumn Dream, Lilian Leveridge
100. An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy, Charles G.D. Roberts


Source: Blogger, "Stats"

The Passing of the Year / Robert Service

The Passing of the Year

My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
     My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
     And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
     Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
     With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
     You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter's chime
     Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
     You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
     And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
     Let us all read, whate'er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
     Is it for dear ones you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
     For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
     What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right
     So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
     That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
     What golden gain, what pride of place?
What splendid hope? O Optimist!
     What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
     What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of a tragic doom?
     What dark, condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
     What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
     What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,
     The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
     And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
     Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!
     Old weary year! it's time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
     My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
     And I prepare to meet the New:
Old Year! a parting word that's true,
     For we've been comrades, you and I –
I thank God for each day of you;
     There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

~~ 
Robert Service (1874-1958)
from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, 1912

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

Robert Service biography

Under the Holly Bough / Charles Mackay

Under the Holly Bough

Ye who have scorned each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
     In this fast-fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
     Come gather here!

Let sinned against and sinning
Forget their strife's beginning,
     And join in friendship now.
Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
     Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
    In this fast-fading year:
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
    Come gather here;

And let your heart grow fonder,
As memory shall ponder
    Each past unbroken vow;
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing
     Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have nourished sadness,
Estranged from hope and gladness
     In this fast-fading year;
Ye with o'erburdened mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
     Come gather here.

Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow,
     If e'er you hoped, hope now.
Take heart,— uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces
     Under the Holly-Bough.

~~
Charles Mackay (1814-1889)
from Christmas with the Poets, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Towson High Music, "Under the Holly Bough"

Charles Mackay biography

A Christmas Carol / J. Ashby-Sterry

A Christmas Carol

'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe,
     When holly-berries glisten bright;
When Christmas fires gleam and glow
When wintry winds so wildly blow,
     And all the meadows round are white —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

How happy then are Fan and Flo,
     With eyes a-sparkle with delight!
When Christmas fires gleam and glow,
When dainty dimples come and go,
     And maidens shrink with feignëd fright —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

A privilege 'tis then, you know,
     To exercise time-honoured rite;
When Christmas fires gleam and glow
When loving lips may pout, although
    With other lips they oft unite —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

If Florry then should whisper "No!"
     Such whispers should be stifled quite,
When Christmas fires gleam and glow;
If Fanny's coy objecting "O!"
     Be strangled by a rare foresight —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

When rosy lips, like Cupid's bow,
     Assault provokingly invite,
When Christmas fires gleam and glow,
When slowly falls the sullen snow,
     And dull is drear December night —
'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!

~~

J. Ashby-Sterry (1836-1917)

from The Lazy Minstrel, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J. Ashby-Sterry biography

Christmas Bells / Edward Capern

Christmas Bells

Ring out ye merry bells, welcome bright icicles,
Welcome old holly-crowned Christmas again,
Blythe as a child at play, keeping his holiday.
Welcome him in from the snow peak and plain.
Up with the holly bough, green from the winter’s brow;
Lock up your ledgers and cares for a day,
Out to the forest go, gather the mistletoe,
Old and young, rich and poor, up and away.

Up with the holly bough, ay and the laurel now,
In with the yule log and brighten the hearth.
Quick, he is here again, come with his joyous train:
Laughter and music and friendship and mirth.
Up with your holly boughs, high in each manor house,
Garnish the antlers that hang in the hall;
Yes, and the neck of corn with a gay wreath adorn,
Rich as the bloom on the cottager’s wall.

Wealth has its duties now, Christians you will allow;
Think then ye rich whilst your tables are spread?
Think of those wretched ones, poverty’s stricken sons,
Weeping whilst children are asking for bread.
Ring out ye merry bells, ring till your music swells,
Out o’er the mountain, and far on the main.
Ring till those cheerless ones catch up your merry tones,
Singing come Christmas again and again.

~~
Edward Capern (1819-1894)

from The Devonshire Melodist, 1861

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Capern biography

"Christmas Bells" performed by Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll. Courtesy Halsway Manor.

The time draws near the birth of Christ / Alfred Tennyson

XXVIII

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
     The moon is hid; the night is still;
     The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
     From far and near, on mead and moor,
     Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
     That now dilate, and now decrease,
     Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
     I almost wish'd no more to wake,
     And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
     For they controll'd me when a boy;
     They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule,

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

"In Memoriam A.H.H. XXVIII"" read by Elizabeth Klett. Courtesy Librivox Audiobooks.

(Poem begins at 29:32)