An October Afternoon / Rachel Annand Taylor

An October Afternoon

        Never again
                The world all gold,
                Repured and cold,
And carved like a great brazen incense cup!
                To gods of old
This rare barbaric perfume riseth up
        Never again.

        Never again
                Yon sorceries
                May burn the trees
That on the green horizon dream to death.
                Rich tears like these
Upon your lids: upon my lip such breath
        Never again!

~~
Rachel Annand Taylor (1876-1960)
from Poems, 1904

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

Rachel Annand Taylor biography

October / Patrick Kavanagh

October

O leafy yellowness you create for me
A world that was and now is poised above time,
I do not need to puzzle out Eternity
As I walk this arboreal street on the edge of a town.
The breeze too, even the temperature
And pattern of movement is precisely the same
As broke my heart for youth passing. Now I am sure
Of something. Something will be mine wherever I am.
I want to throw myself on the public street without caring
For anything but the prayering that the earth offers.
It is October over all my life and the light is staring
As it caught me once in a plantation by the fox coverts.
A man is ploughing the ground for winter wheat
And my nineteen years weigh heavily on my feet.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, and other poems, 1960

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"October" read by Patrick Kavanagh. Courtesy Patrick Kavanagh - Topic.

East Coker (V) / T.S. Eliot

        V

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years —
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate — but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

~~
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
from East Coker, 1940

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

"East Coker" (extracts) read by Jeremy Irons. Courtesy waisehell.

(Part V [first stanza] begins at 9:40)

"East Coker" (V) [second stanza] read by Jeremy Irons. Courtesy Ziton.

Read complete poem

 
T.S. Eliot biography

October's gold is dim / David Gray

XIX

October's gold is dim, – the forests rot,
    The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day
    Is wrapp'd in damp. In mire of village way
The hedge-row leaves are stamp'd, and, all forgot,
The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn.
    Autumn, among her drooping marigolds,
    Weeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds,
And dripping orchards – plundered and forlorn.
    The season is a dead one, and I die!
No more, no more for me the spring shall make
A resurrection in the earth and take
    The death from out her heart – O God, I die!
The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe
Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death!

~~
David Gray (1838-1861)
from In the Shadows, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide] 

David Gray biography

October / Edmund Spenser

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

October. Ægloga Decima

ARGUMENT. In Cuddie is set out the perfecte paterne of a poete, whiche, finding no maintenaunce of his state and studies, complayneth of the contempte of Poetrie, and the causes thereof: specially having bene in all ages, and even amongst the most barbarous, alwayes of singular accounpt and honor, and being indede so worthy and commendable an arte: or rather no arte, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct, not to bee gotten by laboure and learning, but adorned with both, and poured into the witte by a certain [Greek] and celestiall inspiration; as the author hereof els where at large discourseth in his booke called The English Poete, which booke being lately come to my hands, I mynde also by Gods grace, upon further advisement, to publish.

PIERCE.    CUDDIE.

    Piers. Cuddie, for shame! hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.

    Cud. Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine oten reedes bene rent and wore:
And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store,
Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gayne.
Such pleasaunce makes the grashopper so poore,
And ligge so layd, when winter doth her straine.

The dapper ditties that I wont devise,
To feede youthes fancie and the flocking fry,
Delighten much: what I the bett forthy?
They han the pleasure, I a sclender prise:
I beate the bush, the byrds to them doe flye:
What good thereof to Cuddie can arise?

    Piers. Cuddie, the prayse is better then the price,
The glory eke much greater then the gayne:
O what an honor is it, to restraine
The lust of lawlesse youth with good advice,
Or pricke them forth with pleasaunce of thy vaine,
Whereto thou list their trayned willes entice!

Soone as thou gynst to sette thy notes in frame,
O how the rurall routes to thee doe cleave!
Seemeth thou doest their soule of sense bereave,
All as the shepheard, that did fetch his dame
From Plutoes balefull bowre withouten leave:
His musicks might the hellish hound did tame.

    Cud. So praysen babes the peacoks spotted traine,
And wondren at bright Argus blazing eye;
But who rewards him ere the more forthy?
Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine?
Sike prayse is smoke, that sheddeth in the skye,
Sike words bene wynd, and wasten soone in vayne.

    Piers. Abandon then the base and viler clowne:
Lyft up thy selfe out of the lowly dust,
And sing of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts:
Turne thee to those that weld the awful crowne,
To doubted knights, whose woundlesse armour rusts,
And helmes unbruzed wexen dayly browne.

There may thy Muse display her fluttryng wing,
And stretch her selfe at large from east to west:
Whither thou list in fayre Elisa rest,
Or if thee please in bigger notes to sing,
Advaunce the worthy whome shee loveth best,
That first the white beare to the stake did bring.

And when the stubborne stroke of stronger stounds
Has somewhat slackt the tenor of thy string,
Of love and lustihead tho mayst thou sing,
And carrol lowde, and leade the myllers rownde,
All were Elisa one of thilke same ring.
So mought our Cuddies name to heaven sownde.

    Cud. Indeede the Romish Tityrus, I heare,
Through his Mecænas left his oaten reede,
Whereon he earst had taught his flocks to feede,
And laboured lands to yield the timely eare,
And eft did sing of warres and deadly drede,
So as the heavens did quake his verse to here.

But ah! Mecœnas is yclad in claye,
And great Augustus long ygoe is dead,
And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade,
That matter made for poets on to play:
For, ever, who in derring doe were dreade,
The loftie verse of hem was loved aye.

But after vertue gan for age to stoupe,
And mighty manhode brought a bedde of ease,
The vaunting poets found nought worth a pease
To put in preace emong the learned troupe.
Tho gan the streames of flowing wittes to cease,
And sonnebright honour pend in shamefull coupe.

And if that any buddes of poesie
Yet of the old stocke gan to shoote agayne,
Or it mens follies mote be forst to fayne,
And rolle with rest in rymes of rybaudrye,
Or, as it sprong, it wither must agayne:
Tom Piper makes us better melodie.

    Piers. O pierlesse Poesye, where is then thy place?
If nor in princes pallace thou doe sitt,
(And yet is princes pallace the most fitt)
Ne brest of baser birth doth thee embrace.
Then make thee winges of thine aspyring wit,
And, whence thou camst, flye backe to heaven apace.

    Cud. Ah, Percy! it is all to weake and wanne,
So high to sore, and make so large a flight;
Her peeced pyneons bene not so in plight:
For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne:
He, were he not with love so ill bedight,
Would mount as high and sing as soote as swanne.

    Piers. Ah, fon! for love does teach him climbe so hie,
And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre:

Such immortall mirrhor as he doth admire
Would rayse ones mynd above the starry skie,
And cause a caytive corage to aspire;
For lofty love doth loath a lowly eye.

   Cud. All otherwise the state of poet stands:
For lordly Love is such a tyranne fell,
That, where he rules, all power he doth expell.
The vaunted verse a vacant head demaundes,
Ne wont with crabbed Care the Muses dwell:
Unwisely weaves, that takes two webbes in hand.

Who ever casts to compasse weightye prise,
And thinks to throwe out thondring words of threate,
Let powre in lavish cups and thriftie bitts of meate;
For Bacchus fruite is frend to Phæbus wise,
And when with wine the braine begins to sweate,
The nombers flowe as fast as spring doth ryse.

Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage.
O if my temples were distaind with wine,
And girt in girlonds of wild yvie twine,
How I could reare the Muse on stately stage,
And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine,
With queint Bellona in her equipage!

But ah! my corage cooles ere it be warme;
Forthy content us in thys humble shade,
Where no such troublous tydes han us assayde.
Here we our slender pipes may safely charme.
    Piers. And when my gates shall han their bellies layd,
Cuddie shall have a kidde to store his farme.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from Complete Poetical Works, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[November]

Edmund Spenser biography

October's featured poem

  

The Penny Blog's featured poem for October 2022:

Fall, Leaves, Fall, by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/10/fall-leaves-fall.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2022

                  

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2022:

  1.  September, Edmund Spenser

  2.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

  3.  September 9, George J. Dance

  4.  O Canada: The land we love, David Pekrul

  5.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
  6.  September, Ellen P. Allerton
  7.  A Song for September, Thomas William Parsons

  8.  September, Rebecca Hey
  9.  Autumn's Orchestra, Pauline Johnson

10.  World Trade Center, Julia Vinograd

11.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
12.  September, Helen L. Smith
13.  2 poems on summer's end, Emily Dickinson
14.  Autumn Regrets, Paul Bewsher
15.  Hockey War, David Pekrul
16.  Skating, William Wordsworth
17.  Autumn, T.E. Hulme

18.  Card Game, Frank Prewett
19.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

20. Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

Source: Blogger, "Stats"