January / George J. Dance

    January

    Black branches on white
    with one smear of colour,
    a leaf unfallen.

    ~~
    George J. Dance

    from Logos, and other logoi, 2021

["January" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License.]

Image by George J. Dance created with Grok (xAI). CC0 1.0, public domain.

[February]

George J. Dance biography

Penny's Top 20 / December 2024

                                           

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in December 2024:

  1.  December, John Clare

  2.  Logos, George J. Dance

  3.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  4.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  5.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

  6.  Thou Gloomy December, Robert Burns
  7.  Joy like a stream flows ..., Alexander Stewart

  8.  At Christmas-tide, H. Cordelia Ray
  9.  In the Bleak Mid-winter, Christina Rossetti

10.  Under the Mistletoe, Countee Cullen

11.  Christmas at Melrose, Leslie Pinckney Hill

12.  Nativity, John Donne

13.  Before the Snow, George Parsons Lathrop

14.  December, Edwin Arnold

15.  Ballade of Christmas Ghosts, Andrew Lang

16.  Winter Ghost (Taking a Time out), Will Dockery

17.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett

18.  Winterworld Descending, Will Dockery
19.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

20. Ritual Memory, Will Dockery

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

Penny's Top 100 of 2024

 

Penny's Top 100

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in 2024:

  1.  Logos, George J. Dance

  2.  Skating, William Wordsworth

  3.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  4.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

  5.  Ode to Sport, Pierre de Coubertin

  6.  December, John Clare

  7.  June Rain, Richard Aldington

  8.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

  9.  August, Edmund Spenser

10.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

11.  A Morning Song (for the First Day of Spring), Eleanor Farjeon

12.  February, George J. Dance

13.  April Weather, Edith Wyatt

14.  Winter Song, Elizabeth Tollett

15.  Amarant, AE Reiff

16.  Moonlight Alert, Yvor Winters

17.  Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens

18.  Hymn, Jack Kerouac

19.  Winter Ghost (Taking a Time out), Will Dockery

20.  Autumn's Orchestra, Pauline Johnson

21.  Silk Diamond, George Sulzbach

22.  Summer Stars, Carl Sandburg

23.  Poem with Rhythms, Wallace Stevens

24.  At the Gates of Dawn, George J. Dance 

25.  Winterworld Descending, Will Dockery

26.  August, George J. Dance

27.  September, Vizant* Or

28.  October, George J. Dance

29.  A Meadow in Spring, Tom Bishop

30.  Auld Lang Syne, Robert Burns

31.  November, George J. Dance

32.  My soul is an enchanted boat, Percy Bysshe Shelley

33.  For My Darling, Archibald Lampman

34.  The Lake Isle of Innisfree, W.B. Yeats

35.  Mowing, Robert Frost

36.  All Souls Night, Frances Cornford

37.  Spring Rains, George Sulzbach

38.  Fair Summer Droops, Thomas Nash

39.  On a Thrush Singing in Autumn, Lewis Morris

40.  Ritual Memory, Will Dockery

41.  St. Patrick's Day, Jean Blewett

42.  The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats

43.  Canada, Pauline Johnson

44.  love is more thicker than forget, E.E. Cummings

45.  August Moon, J.C. Squire

46.  A Remembrance of Autumn, Adelaide Procter

47.  When Summer Comes, Sophia Almon Hensley

48.  Velvet Shoes, Elinor Wylie

49.  A Day in June, James Russell Lowell

50.  Ganesha Girl on Rankin, Will Dockery

51.  The Grotto, Barry Cornwall

52.  January, James Russell Lowell

53.  In the Bleak Mid-winter, Christina Rossetti

54.  Season of Change, George Sulzbach

55.  The Old Year out and the New Year in, Augusta Webster

56.  Winter Streams, Bliss Carman

57.  A July Fern-Leaf, Mortimer Collins

58.  Good Riddance, but Now What?, Ogden Nash

59.  An April Rain Song, Langston Hughes

60.  A Summer Morning, George Henry Boker

61.  A Song of Winter, Emily Pfeiffer

62.  Autumn, Francis Ledwidge

63.  Ballad of the Goodly Fere, Ezra Pound

64.  For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon

65.  At the New Year, Kenneth Patchen

66.  Night Rain, Christopher Mercon

67.  March, Edwin Arnold

68.  Tell me not here, it needs not saying, A.E. Housman

69.  March Sunset, Hilda Conkling

70.  Long Island Sound, Emma Lazarus

71.  Darkness, Lord Byron

72.  Manitoba Childe Roland, Carl Sandburg

73.  The Winter Lakes, William Wilfred Campbell

74.  August Child, Marion Strobel

75.  Bird Cage, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

76.  In the Fields, Charlotte Mew

77.  First Week in October, Charles Tennyson Turner 

78.  A Summer Night, Matthew Arnold

79.  Dawn in the June Woods, William Wilfred Campbell

80.  October, Louise Driscoll

81.  The Succession of the Four Sweet Months, Robert Herrick

82.  The March, J.C. Squire

83.  Evening, Katherine Hale

84.  To a Thrush Singing in January, John Keble

85.  Sea-Fever, John Masefield

86.  We Like the Winter and Its Snows, James Berry Bensel

87.  July, Susan Hartley Swett

88.  March: An ode, A.C. Swinburne

89.  February the First on the Prairies, Wilson MacDonald

90.  September, Edwin Arnold

91.  Vacation End, Leslie Pinckney Hill

92.  To the Sea Angel, Will Dockery

93.  Autumnal Day, Rainer Maria Rilke

94.  August, Edwin Arnold

95.  When I heard the learned astronomer, Walt Whitman

96.  The Parterre, E.H. Palmer

97.  When icicles hang by the wall, William Shakespeare

98.  January, Edwin Arnold

99.  The Manor Farm, Edward Thomas

100 i thank you God for most this amazing, E.E. Cummings

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

December / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

December

In fret-work of frost and spangle of snow
Unto his end the year doth wend;
And sadly for some the days did go,
And glad for some were beginning and end!
But — sad or glad — grieve not for his death,
Mournfully counting your measures of breath,
You, that, before the stars began,
Were seed of woman and promise of man,
You who are older than Aldebaran!
It was but a ring round about the Sun,
One passing dance of the planets done;
One step of the Infinite Minuet
Which the great worlds pace, to a music set
By Life immortal and Love divine:
Whereof is struck, in your threescore and ten,
One chord of the harmony, fair and fine,
Of that which maketh us women and men!
In fret-work of frost and spangle of snow,
Sad or glad — let the old year go!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), 1884

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[January]

Edwin Arnold biography

Hannes Grobe, New Year's Eve 2022/23 in Bremerhaven, Germany. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Ballade of Christmas Ghosts / Andrew Lang

Ballade of Christmas Ghosts

Between the moonlight and the fire
In winter twilights long ago,
What ghosts we raised for your desire,
To make your merry blood run slow!
How old, how grave, how wise we grow!
No Christmas ghost can make us chill,
Save those that troop in mournful row,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

The beasts can talk in barn and byre
On Christmas Eve, old legends know.
As year by year the years retire,
We men fall silent then I trow,
Such sights hath memory to show,
Such voices from the silence thrill,
Such shapes return with Christmas snow,—
The ghosts we all can raise at will.

Oh, children of the village choir,
Your carols on the midnight throw,
Oh, bright across the mist and mire,
Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!
Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,
Let's cheerily descend the hill;
Be welcome all, to come or go,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

Envoy

Friend, sursum corda, soon or slow
We part, like guests who've joyed their fill;
Forget them not, nor mourn them so,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

~~
Andrew Lang (1844-1912), 1884
from Rhymes a la Mode, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Andrew Lang biography

"Ballade of Christmas Ghosts" read by The English Channel.

Nativity / John Donne

Nativity

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
    Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
    There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
    Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
    Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
    Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
    Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

~~
John Donne (1572-1631)
from Poems, 1633

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Donne biography

"Nativity" read by Ghizela Rowe.

At Christmas-tide / H. Cordelia Ray

At Christmas-tide

Gleamed a resplendent star
Over the hillsides far,
While shepherds watched by night
On the peaceful height.

Softly the gold-light fell
Over the vale and dell,
While angels warbled clear
“Lo! the Christ-child's here!”

Wise men brought there with them,
Sweet Child of Bethlehem,
Rare gifts to offer Thee,
For Thou mad'st them free.

“Peace!” list the magic word
Now through the ages heard;
“Good-will!” it echoes still
With the olden thrill.

Sweet Child in mercy sent,
Jesus, grant us content.
Evermore may we be
Near to truth and Thee!

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

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

Nativity, c. 1720-1725 (detail). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.