May / David Atwood Wasson

May

The green blades are springing,
        The glad birds are singing,
The sunlight is laughing o'er forest and lea;
        And the heart in my bosom
        Expands in each blossom,
It grows in the grass, and it sings from the tree.

        Is it true, the sweet feeling
        Through every vein stealing?
Am I there, do I live in the breath of the spring?
        In the many-voiced carol
        And the sward s green apparel?
In the far-flying shine is my soul on the wing?

        O Life! many-sided,
        But never divided,
Here hid in a bud, there bright in the sun,
        I live in thy flowing:
        Thy thought is my knowing:
The blossom, the bird, and mv heart, thev are one.

~~
David Atwood Wasson (1823-1887)
from Poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

David Atwood Wasson biography

Michael Martin, May Morning, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Mother to Son / Langston Hughes

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now —
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

~~
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
from The Weary Blues, 1926

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

Langston Hughes biography

"Mother to Son" read by Viola Davis Courtesy Youtube.

May / H. Cordelia Ray

from The Procession of the Seasons

Sophie Anderson (1823-1903), Take the Fair Face

 of Women...Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

May 

Sweet winsome May, coy pensive fay,
     Comes garlanded with lily bells,
And apple blooms shed incense through the bow'r,
     To be her dow'r;
     While through the leafy dells
     A wondrous concert swells
To welcome May, the dainty fay.

~~
H. Cordelia Ray (1852-1916)
from Poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[June]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

In Early May / Bliss Carman

In Early May

O my dear, the world to-day
Is more lovely than a dream!
Magic hints from far away
Haunt the woodland, and the stream
Murmurs in his rocky bed
Things that never can be said.

Starry dogwood is in flower,
Gleaming through the mystic woods.
It is beauty's perfect hour
In the wild spring solitudes.
Now the orchards in full blow
Shed their petals white as snow.

All the air is honey-sweet
With the lilacs white and red,
Where the blossoming branches meet
In an arbor overhead.
And the laden cherry trees
Murmur with the hum of bees.

All the earth is fairy green,
And the sunlight filmy gold,
Full of ecstasies unseen,
Full of mysteries untold.
Who would not be out-of-door,
Now the spring is here once more!

~~
Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
from Later Poems, 1926

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

Bliss Carman biography

"In Early May" read by Jane Elizabeth. Courtesy YouTube.

May Day / Thomas MacDonagh

May Day

I wish I were to-day on the hill behind the wood,–
My eyes on the brown bog there and the Shannon river,–
Behind the wood at home, a quickened solitude
When the winds from Slieve Bloom set the branches there a-quiver.

The winds are there now and the green of May
On every feathery tree-bough, tender on every hedge:
Over the bog-fields there larks carol to-day,
And a cuckoo is mocking them out of the woodland's edge.

Here a country warmth is quiet on the rocks
That alone make never a change when the May is duly come;
Here sings no lark, and to-day no cuckoo mocks:
Over the wide hill a hawk floats, and the leaves are dumb.

~~
Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916)
from Poetical Works, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas MacDonagh biography

Oliver Dixon, River Shannon at Bellantra Bridge, May 2008. 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

May's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for May 2023:

Corinna's Going a-Maying, by Robert Herrick

[...]
Rise; and put on your Foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and green
[...]

(read by Katrina Atsinger)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/05/corrina-robert-herrick.html

Penny's Top 20 / April 2023

                        

Penny's Top 20

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

  1.  Spring Rains, George Sulzbach

  2.  Maye, Edmund Spenser

  3.  Card Game, Frank Prewett 

  4.  in Just-spring, E.E. Cummings

  5.  Skating, William Wordsworth
  6.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams
  7.  Ballad of the Goodly Fere, Ezra Pound

  8.  Mars & Avril, George J. Dance
  9.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

10.  Good Friday, Christina Rossetti

11.  Wet Evening in April, Patrick Kavanagh
12.  An April Night, Lucy Maud Montgomery
13.  A Song for April, Charles G.D. Roberts

14.  June Rain, Richard Aldington
15.  The April Day, Caroline Bowles Southey
16.  Penny, or Penny's Hat, George J. Dance

17.  April, H. Cordelia Ray

18.  Heat in the City, Charles G.D. Roberts 
19.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

20. Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

Source: Blogger, "Stats"