October's Party / George Cooper

October's Party

October gave a party;
    The leaves by hundreds came —
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
    And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
    And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
    Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
    The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
    In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
    And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
    New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
    At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
    And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
    They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
    In jolly "hands around."

~~
George Cooper (1840-1927)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Cooper biography

A Trivial Day in Early Autumn / Pearl Andelson Sherry

A Trivial Day in Early Autumn

from Worker in Marble

A China lily cup
Upon a pool
Lifts up
Its bowl.

Over the pale sky
Frail clouds;
A butterfly
About the garden flowers.

Subtle
The wind
Among
The falling leaves.

~~
Pearl Andelson Sherry (1899-1966)
from Poetry, December 1922

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

Pearl Andelson Sherry biography

Advent of Today / William Carlos Williams

Advent of Today

South wind
striking in — torn
spume — trees

inverted over trees
scudding low
a sea become winged

bringing today
out of yesterday
in bursts of rain —

a darkened presence
above
detail of October grasses

veiled at once
in a downpour —
conflicting rattle of

the rain against
the storm’s slow majesty —
leaves

rising
instead of falling
the sun

coming and going
toward the
middle parts of the sky

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
from Complete Collected Poems, 1906-1938, 1938

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

William Carlos Williams biography

An October Evening / William Wilfred Campbell

An October Evening

The woods are haggard and lonely,
    The skies are hooded for snow,
The moon is cold in Heaven,
    And the grasses are sere below.

The bearded swamps are breathing
    A mist from meres afar,
And grimly the Great Bear circles
    Under the pale Pole Star.

There is never a voice in Heaven,
    Nor ever a sound on earth,
Where the spectres of winter are rising
    Over the night's wan girth.

There is slumber and death in the silence,
    There is hate in the winds so keen;
And the flash of the north's great sword-blade
    Circles its cruel sheen.

The world grows agèd and wintry,
    Love's face peakèd and white;
And death is kind to the tired ones
    Who sleep in the north to-night.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell
from Poems, 1905

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

William Wilfred Campbell biography

To a Moth That Drinketh of the Ripe October / Emily Pfeiffer

To a Moth That Drinketh of the Ripe October

    I

A moth belated, sun and zephyrkist,
Trembling about a pale arbutus bell,
Probing to wildering depths its honey’d cell,—
A noonday thief, a downy sensualist!
Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath,
Strikest ambrosia from the cool-cupp’d flowers,
And flutterest through the soft, uncounted hours,
To drop at last in unawaited death;
’T is something to be glad! and those fine thrills,
Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile
Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills,
If ill have any part in thee; erewhile
May the pent force—thy bounded life, set free,
Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy.


    II

With what fine organs art thou dower’d, frail elf!
Thy harp is pitch’d too high for dull annoy,
Thy life a love-feast, and a silent joy,
As mute and rapt as Passion’s silent self.
I turn from thee, and see the swallow sweep
Like a wing’d will, and the keen-scented hound
That snuffs with rapture at the tainted ground,—
All things that freely course, that swim or leap,—
Then, hearing glad voiced creatures men call dumb,
I feel my heart, oft sinking ’neath the weight
Of Nature’s sorrow, lighten at the sum
Of Nature’s joy; its half unfolded fate
Breathes hope — for all but those beneath the ban
Of the inquisitor and tyrant, man.

~~
Emily Pfeiffer (1827-1890)
from Sonnets and Songs, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Pfeiffer biography

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October:

Mnemosyne, by Trumbull Stickney

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/10/mnemosyne.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2021

       

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2021:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  3.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

  4.  To Tame the Kingdoms Let His Angels Run, AE Reiff

  5.  September Night, George J. Dance
  6.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollet
  7.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  8.  On the Approach of Autumn, Amelia Opie
  9.  4 autumn American Haiku, Jack Kerouac
10.  September, Ella Wheeler Wilcox

11.  September: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
12.  East Coker (I), T.S. Eliot
13.  Lines (You go to the woods), Carolyn Sturgis Tappan
14.  A September Morning in Nebraska, C.M. Barrow
15.  Christ Walks in this Infernal District Too, Malcolm Lowry
16.  Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens
17.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

18.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons
19.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

20. A June Night, Emma Lazarus

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