_The Penny Blog_

Afternoon in February / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2012-02-25T14:00:00.003-05:00

Afternoon in February

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

~~
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from The Belfry of Bruges, and Other Poems, 1845

[Poem is in the public domain]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow biography

February / Ethelwyn Wetherald

2012-02-20T13:18:00.004-05:00

February

O Master-Builder, blustering as you go
About your giant work, transforming all
The empty woods into a glittering hall,
And making lilac lanes and footpaths grow
As hard as iron under stubborn snow,
Though every fence stand forth a marble wall,
And windy hollows drift to arches tall,
There comes a might that shall your might o'erthrow.
Build high your white and dazzling palaces,
Strengthen your bridges, fortify your towers,
Storm with a loud and a portentious lip;
And April with a fragmentary breeze,
And half a score of gentle, golden hours,
Shall leave no trace of your stern workmanship.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

Now winter nights enlarge / Thomas Campion

2012-02-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

Now winter nights enlarge

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

~~
Thomas Campion
from The Third and Fourth Book of Ayres, 1617

[Poem is in the public domain]

Thomas Campion biography

Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping / Gertrude Bartlett

2012-02-18T13:42:00.001-05:00

Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping

The end that Love doth seek, what bard can say,
In that fair season when the tender green
Of opening leaves doth roof the woods of May,
And sweet wild buds from out their places lean
To touch the dainty feet that heedless stray
Among them, with a youth in knight's attire?
His lady's will capricious to obey,
This is the end of dawning Love's desire.

And when amid the summer's bright array
Of blossoms, are the crimson roses seen,
And one young maid, fairer than any spray
In perfect bloom, wanders their lines between,
What blessed solace can the lover pray
Of her compassion, for his heart of fire?
With kisses on her mouth all words to stay –
This is the end of eager Love's desire.

With driven clouds the lowering sky is grey;
The winds above the frozen hills are keen,
And all fair buds have fallen in decay;
What joy hath now the true knight of his Queen
No rapture less exultant can allay
His need, than softly craves this faulty lyre:
To answer all his pleading with sweet 'Yea' –
This is the end of yearning Love's desire.

Envoy

Beloved, now is done our life's brief day;
Not with the day howe'er doth Love expire.
Within thine arms the night to dream away –
This is the end of Love's supreme desire.

~~
Gertrude Bartlett
from Canadian Poets, 1916

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

Gertrude Bartlett biography

Afterglow / George Dance

2012-02-14T18:23:00.001-05:00

Afterglow

My darling, on this night of Valentine's,
Excuse me while I find a way to say
I love you, knowing I could never pay
For thirty years with only fourteen lines.
But let me try to say just what I mean:
That in the depths of February's chill,
As long as I can have you with me still,
It never will be dark or cold, Maureen;
For, holding you and looking at the snow,
I see a light from thirty years ago
Still blazing, gleaming, dazzling all below!
And looking in your eyes, Maureen, I know
A passion from as many years ago,
Which warms my body with its afterglow.

~~
George Dance
2007

[All rights reserved by the author]

When Yon Full Moon / W.H. Davies

2012-02-12T14:04:00.003-05:00

When Yon Full Moon

When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars,
And but one bird makes music in the grove;

When you and I are breathing side by side,

Where our two bodies make one shadow, love;

Not for her beauty will I praise the moon,

But that she lights thy purer face and throat;

The only praise I'll give the nightingale

Is that she draws from thee a richer note.

For, blinded with thy beauty, I am filled,

Like Saul of Tarsus, with a greater light;

When he had heard that warning voice in Heaven,

And lost his eyes to find a deeper sight.

Come, let us sit in that deep silence then,

Launched on love's rapids, with our passions proud,

That makes all music hollow – though the lark

Raves in his windy heights above a cloud.

W.H. Davies

from Georgian Poetry 1918-1919, 1919

W.H. Davies biography

February / Helen Hunt Jackson

2012-02-11T15:26:00.000-05:00

February

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are the days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;
Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,
To reckon clear the new life's sterner need;
Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

Whiteout / George Dance

2012-02-09T06:11:00.002-05:00

Whiteout

White flakes peeling
from a leprous sky.
Death is in the air.

~~
George Dance
2008

George Dance biography

The Winter Fields / Charles G.D. Roberts

2012-02-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

The Winter Fields

Winds here, and sleet, and frost that bites like steel.
The low bleak hill rounds under the low sky.
Naked of flock and fold the fallows lie,
Thin streaked with meagre drift. The gusts reveal
By fits the dim grey snakes of fence, that steal
Through the white dusk. The hill-foot poplars sigh,
While storm and death with winter trample by,
And the iron fields ring sharp, and blind lights reel.

Yet in the lonely ridges, wrenched with pain,
Harsh solitary hillocks, bound and dumb,
Grave glebes close-lipped beneath the scourge and chain,
Lurks hid the germ of ecstasy — the sum
Of life that waits on summer, till the rain
Whisper in April and the crocus come.

~~
Charles G.D. Roberts
from Songs of the Common Day, 1893

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

In February / Alice Meynell

2012-02-04T18:55:00.005-05:00

In February

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers;
A poet's face asleep in this grey morn.
Now in the midst of the old world forlorn
A mystic child is set in these still hours.
I keep this time, even before the flowers,
Sacred to all the young and the unborn.

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,
And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,
And to the future of my own young art,
And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,
My friend, to your calm face and the immortal
Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.

~~~
Alice Meynell
from Preludes, 1875

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

Alice Meynell biography

Penny's Top 20 - January 2012

2012-02-03T18:04:00.001-05:00

The 20 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during January 2012:

1. Penny (or Penny's Hat), George Dance
2. Esthétique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
3. Vowels / Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud
4. The Huron Carol, trans. J. Edgar Middleton
5. Lines: The cold earth slept below, Percy Bysshe Shelley

6. Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy
7. The Book of Wisdom, Stephen Crane
8.  The Year, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
9. Wind and Silver, Amy Lowell
10. The Old Year, John Clare

11. A Winter's Tale, D.H. Lawrence
12.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens
13. Songs, Demonspawn
14.  Horatian Ode 1.9. trans. Charles Stuart Calverley
15. A City Sunset, T.E. Hulme

16. Ganesha Girl on Rankin, Will Dockery
17. Lucky Penny, George Dance
18. The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens
19. September Night, George Dance
20. November, F.W. Harvey

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Horatian Ode 1.9 / Charles Stuart Calverley

2012-01-29T11:27:00.003-05:00

Ode 1.9

One dazzling mass of solid snow
Soracte stands; the bent woods fret
Beneath their load; and, sharpest-set
With frost, the streams have ceased to flow.

Pile on great faggots and break up
The ice: let influence more benign
Enter with four-years-treasured wine,
Fetched in the ponderous Sabine cup:

Leave to the Gods all else. When they
Have once bid rest the winds that war
Over the passionate seas, no more
Grey ash and cypress rock and sway.

Ask not what future suns shall bring,
Count to-day gain, whate'er it chance
To be: nor, young man, scorn the dance,
Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing,

Ere Time thy April youth hath changed
To sourness. Park and public walk
Attract thee now, and whispered talk
At twilight meetings pre-arranged;

Hear now the pretty laugh that tells
In what dim corner lurks thy love;
And snatch a bracelet or a glove
From wrist or hand that scarce rebels.

~~~
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
translation by Charles Stuart Calverley
from Verses and Translations, 1862

[Poem is in the public domain]

Horace biography
Charles Stuart Calverley biography

The cold earth slept below / Percy Bysshe Shelley

2012-01-28T16:04:00.002-05:00

Lines: The cold earth slept below

The cold earth slept below;
         Above the cold sky shone;
                 And all around,
   With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
                 Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;
          The green grass was not seen;
                 The birds did rest
                 On the bare thorn’s breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o’er many a crack
                 Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare
          Of the moon’s dying light;
                 As a fen-fire’s beam
                 On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly — so the moon shone there,
And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,
                 That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
          The wind made thy bosom chill;
                 The night did shed
                 On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
                 Might visit thee at will.

~~~
Percy Bysshe Shelley
from The Literary Pocket-Book, 1818.

[Poem is in the public domain]

Percy Bysshe Shelley biography

A Winter's Tale / D.H. Lawrence

2012-01-22T09:37:00.001-05:00

A Winter's Tale

Yesterday the fields were only gray with scattered snow,
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
On towards the pines at the hill's white verge.

I cannot see her, since the mist's pale scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
Sobs struggling in to her frosty sigh.

When does she come so promptly, when she must know
She's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell?
The hill is steep, on the slope my steps are slow —
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?

~~
D.H. Lawrence
from Amores, 1916

[All rights reserved by the author's estate - Please do not copy]

D.H. Lawrence biography

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (1-10)

2012-01-18T18:16:00.002-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

1. Penny (or Penny's Hat), George Dance
2. Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens
3. Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, Wallace Stevens
4. Lorelei's Song / Das Loreleylied, Heinrich Heine
5. Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy

6. Ganesha Girl on Rankin, Will Dockery
7. Mars & Avril, George Dance
8. Romance Novel / Roman, Arthur Rimbaud
9. Lucky Penny, George Dance
10. The Man with the Blue Guitar, Wallace Stevens

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (11-20)

2012-01-17T18:28:00.002-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

11. Daily News, George Dance
12. Red Lipped Stranger, Will Dockery
13. Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens
14. Songs, Demonspawn
15. Winter Love, George Dance

16. Chun Wang / Spring Scene, Tu Fu
17. A Sonnet of the Moon, Charles Best
18. Landscape in 2 Colours / Paysage en 2 couleurs, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
19. Autumn Song, George Dance
20. Men Made Out of Words, Wallace Stevens

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (21-30)

2012-01-15T10:00:00.004-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

21. Vowels / Voyelles, Arthur Rimbaud
22. Angel's Song, Hieronymous707
23. Portrait, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
24. November, F.W. Harvey
25. September Night, George Dance

26. Velvet Shoes, Elinor Wylie
27. Bird Cage / Cage d'oiseau, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
28. The Playing / Le jeu, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
29. Sonnet. The Token, John Donne
30. A Villlanelle is Difficult to Write, Hieronymous707

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (31-40)

2012-01-14T17:39:00.003-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

31. A Light exists in Spring, Emily Dickinson
32. Accompaniment / Accompagnement, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
33. In the Bleak Mid-winter, Christina Rossetti
34. Petit the Poet, Edgar Lee Masters
35. A Scroll, George Dance

36. Improvisations on the Flute, Marjorie Pickthall
37. Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion, Wallace Stevens
38. March, George Dance
39. The Huron Carol, trans. J. Edgar Middleton
40. Elixir (Dance Mix), Crystal Matteau & George Dance

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (41-50)

2012-01-12T17:54:00.003-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

41. For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon
42. Impression: Le Reveillon, Oscar Wilde
43. Mannequin in a Mirror, Matt E. and George Dance
44. Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself, Wallace Stevens
45. August Night, Sara Teasdale

46. The New England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day, Lydia Maria Child
47. Wheat Field Concerts, James D. Senetto
48. Icicle Drops, Arthur Lockhart
49. The Children, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
50. June, George Dance

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (51-60)

2012-01-11T18:32:00.001-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

51. Song (Man's a poor deluded bubble), Robert Dodsley
52. Winter Uplands, Archibald Lampman
53. Once, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
54. how far away it was, ray heinrich
55. The Sky is low, Emily Dickinson

56. On the Grasshopper and Cricket, John Keats
57. Wind and Silver, Amy Lowell
58. Stonewalled Meteor, Rusty Taylor
59. Heat in the City, Archibald Lampman
60. The Bridge at Flatline, Adam Lynn

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (61-70)

2012-01-10T18:04:00.003-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

61. Winter Nightfall, Robert Bridges
62. Stony Lake, Katherine Hale
63. Departure, Edna St. Vincent Millay
64. Orbits, Adam Lynn
65. Minor Apocalypse, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau

66. There is a Garden in Her Face, Thomas Campion
67. She Walks in Beauty, Lord Byron
68. The Starlit Night, Gerard Manley Hopkins
69. Oxford Cheese Ode, James McIntyre
70. When You Are Old, W.B. Yeats

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (71-80)

2012-01-09T20:51:00.002-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

71. Spring Night, Sara Teasdale
72. Puella Parvula, Wallace Stevens
73. River of My Eyes, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
74. A Hymn on the Nativity of My Saviour, Ben Jonson
75. Penny's OS 2.0, George Dance

76. A Christmas Ghost Story, Thomas Hardy
77. Rain in the Desert, John Gould Fletcher
78. 8-8, David Rutkowski
79. The Day Charles Bukowski Died, Gary Frankfurth
80. There is a Wild and Mysticated Wood, Tom Hendricks

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (81-90)

2012-01-08T23:09:00.001-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2010:

81. Winter Field, A.E. Coppard
82. The Dove of New Snow, Vachel Lindsay
83. I Am Not Yours, Sara Teasdale
84. Remembering Ishtar (1929), Ivan McNeil
85. Let No Charitable Hope, Elinor Wylie

86. Christmas Carol, Sara Teasdale
87. A Fading of the Sun, Wallace Stevens
88. The stars are glittering in the frosty sky, Charles Heavysege
89. A Madrigal, Jane Elizabeth MacDonald
90. To Daffodils, Robert Herrick

Penny's Top 100 of 2011 (91-100)

2012-01-08T01:34:00.000-05:00

From Penny's Top 100: the 100 most-visited poems on The Penny Blog during 2011:

91. Snow on the East Wind, Edward Plunkett
92. Beautiful Old Age, D.H. Lawrence
93. How He Died, Ernest Howard Crosby
94. A January Morning, Archibald Lampman
95. The Dark Hills, Edward Arlington Robinson

96. The Great Matter, Obsidian Eagle
97. The Skaters, John Gould Fletcher
98. Penny's OS, George Dance
99. Moonlight and Common Day, Louise Morey Bowen
100. A Moth Danced, James D. Senetto

The Year / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

2012-01-01T00:54:00.000-05:00

The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
from Poems of Cheer, 1914

[Poem is in the public domain]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography