Wet Evening in April / Patrick Kavanagh

Wet Evening in April

The birds sang in the wet trees
And as I listened to them it was a hundred years from now
And I was dead and someone else was listening to them.
But I was glad I had recorded for him
the melancholy.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from Kavanagh's Weekly, April 1952

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

Christian Volmer, Birds on Tree in Winter, 2022 (detail). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

An April Night / Lucy Maud Montgomery

An April Night

The moon comes up o'er the deeps of the woods,
    And the long, low dingles that hide in the hills,
Where the ancient beeches are moist with buds
    Over the pools and the whimpering rills;

And with her the mists, like dryads that creep
    From their oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,
Who hold, while the eyes of the world are asleep,
    With the wind on the hills their gay revellings.

Down on the marshlands with flicker and glow
    Wanders Will-o'-the-Wisp through the night,
Seeking for witch-gold lost long ago
    By the glimmer of goblin lantern-light.

The night is a sorceress, dusk-eyed and dear,
    Akin to all eerie and elfin things,
Who weaves about us in meadow and mere
    The spell of a hundred vanished Springs.

~~
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

Raj Dahal, Cavendish Beach, Prince Edward Island, 2016. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Ballad of the Goodly Fere / Ezra Pound

Ballad of the Goodly Fere

Simon Zelotes speaketh it sometime after the Crucifixion.

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
"Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?" says he.

Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o' men was he.

I ha' seen him drive a hundred men
Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They'll no' get him a' in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
"I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Though I go to the gallows tree."

"Ye ha' seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead," says he,
"Ye shall see one thing to master all:
'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree."

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o' Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi' twey words spoke' suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb
Sin' they nailed him to the tree.

~~
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
From Exultations, 1909

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

Ezra Pound biography

"Ballad of the Goodly Fere" read by SweetSheet. Courtesy YouTube.

Good Friday / Christina Rossetti

Good Friday

Am I a stone and not a sheep,
    That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
    To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
    Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
    Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
    Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
    A horror of great darkness at broad noon —
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
    But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
    Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

~~
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
from The Prince's Progress,  and other poems, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide.]

Christina Rossetti biography

"Good Friday" read by Jean Aked. Courtesy YouTube.

A Song for April / Charles G.D. Roberts

A Song for April

List! list! The buds confer:
This noonday they've had news of her;
The south bank has had views of her;
The thorn shall exact his dues of her;
    The willows adream
    By the freshet stream
Shall ask what boon they choose of her.

Up! up! The world's astir;
The would-be green has word of her;
Root and germ have heard of her,
    Coming to break
    Their sleep and wake
Their hearts with every bird of her.

See! see! How swift concur
Sun, wind, and rain at the name of her,
A-wondering what became of her;
The fields flower at the flame of her;
    The glad air sings
    With dancing wings
And the silvery shrill acclaim of her.

---
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)
From Poems, 1901

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

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

Carolyn M. Highsmith, Sculpture of Diana, Houston, Texas, March 2014 (detail). 

Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

April's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for April 2023:

"Chansons Innocentes I" by E.E. Cummings

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud
- luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles       far       and wee
[...]

(read by E.E. Cummings)
https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2013/04/in-just-spring-ee-cummings.html

Penny's Top 20 / March 2023

                       

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in March 2023:

  1.  Mars & Avril, George J. Dance

  2.  Winter-thought, Archibald Lampman

  3.  Maye, Edmund Spenser

  4.  The Snow is Deep on the Ground, Kenneth Patchen

  5.  We Like March, Emily Dickinson
  6.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon
  7.  A March Glee, John Burroughs

  8.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance
  9.  Card Game, Frank Prewett 

10.  March, Mary Slade

11.  March, Nora Chesson
12.  Skating, William Wordsworth
13.  Moods of March, Ellen P. Allerton

14.  March, H. Cordelia Ray
15.  Mother Ireland, Arthur Stringer
16.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
17.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

18.  June, Guy Wetmore Carryl
19.  Bird Cage, Hector de Saint Denys Garneau

20. August, Edmund Spenser

Source: Blogger, "Stats"