Archived Poems of the Month 2007 - 2008

2001-2002 Archived Poems
2003-2004 Archived Poems
2005-2006 Archived Poems
January '07	Calendar of Sonnets: January	February '07	Yellow Jessamine
March '07	Earliest Spring	April '07	Blue Squills
May '07	May Night	June '07	Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights
July '07	Flags of Freedom	August '07	August, 1842 with a remembrance of August, 1807
September '07	Calendar of Sonnets: September	October '07	October Arriving
November '07	November Night	December '07	Flame-Heart
January '08	Happy New Year	February '08	The Mockingbird
March '08	More forest, and more	April '08	1 VII from Withered Leaves
May '08	Faith and Fate	June '08	Hyla Brook
July '08		August '08
September '08		October '08
November '08		December '08

Poem of the Month: January 2007

	A Calendar of Sonnets: January
	O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire The streams than under ice. June could not hire Her roses to forego the strength they learn In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn The bridges thou dost lay where men desire In vain to build. O Heart, when Love's sun goes To northward, and the sounds of singing cease, Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace. Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose. Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows, The winter is the winter's own release.
	—Helen Jackson

A Calendar of Sonnets: January

O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.

—Helen Jackson

Poem of the Month: February 2007

	Yellow Jessamine
	In tangled wreaths, in clustered gleaming stars, In floating, curling sprays, The golden flower comes shining through the woods These February days; Forth go all hearts, all hands, from out the town, To bring her gayly in, This wild, sweet Princess of far Florida— The yellow jessamine. The live-oaks smile to see her lovely face Peep from the thickets; shy, She hides behind the leaves her golden buds Till, bolder grown, on high She curls a tendril, throws a spray, then flings Herself aloft in glee, And, bursting into thousand blossoms swings In wreaths from tree to tree.
	The dwarf-palmetto on his knees adores This Princess of the air; The lone pine-barren broods afar and sighs, “Ah! come, lest I despair;” The myrtle-thickets and ill-tempered thorns Quiver and thrill within, As through their leaves they feel the dainty touch Of yellow jessamine.
	The garden-roses wonder as they see The wreaths of golden bloom, Brought in from the far woods with eager haste To deck the poorest room, The rich man’s house, alike; the loaded hands Give sprays to all they meet, Till, gay with flowers, the people come and go, And all the air is sweet. The Southern land, well weary of its green Which may not fall nor fade, Bestirs itself to greet the lovely flower With leaves of fresher shade; The pine has tassels, and the orange-trees Their fragrant work begin: The spring has come—has come to Florida, With yellow jessamine.
	—Constance Fenimore Woolson

Poem of the Month: March 2007

	Earliest Spring
	Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift. Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes— Rapture of life ineffable, perfect—as if in the brier, Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.
	—William Dean Howells

Earliest Spring

Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow
Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift
Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,
Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.

Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire
(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes—
Rapture of life ineffable, perfect—as if in the brier,
Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.

—William Dean Howells

Poem of the Month: April 2007

	Blue Squills
	How many million Aprils came Before I ever knew How white a cherry bough could be, A bed of squills, how blue. And many a dancing April When life is done with me, Will lift the blue flame of the flower And the white flame of the tree. Oh, burn me with your beauty, then, Oh, hurt me, tree and flower, Lest in the end death try to take Even this glistening hour. O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees, O sunlit white and blue, Wound me, that I through endless sleep May bear the scar of you.
--Sara Teasdale

Blue Squills

How many million Aprils came
     Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
     A bed of squills, how blue.

And many a dancing April
     When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
     And the white flame of the tree.

Oh, burn me with your beauty, then,
     Oh, hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
     Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
     O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I through endless sleep
      May bear the scar of you.

--Sara Teasdale

Poem of the Month: May 2007

May Night
	THE spring is fresh and fearless And every leaf is new, The world is brimmed with moonlight, The lilac brimmed with dew. Here in the moving shadows I catch my breath and sing-- My heart is fresh and fearless And over-brimmed with spring.
	—Sara Teasdale

Poem of the Month: June 2007

Ballade (Double Refrain) of Midsummer Days and Nights - to W.H.
	With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, And the winds are one with the clouds and beams - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze, While the West from a rapture of sunset rights, Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams, The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, All secret shadows and mystic lights, Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
	There's a music of bells from the trampling teams, Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze, The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! A soul from the honeysuckle strays, And the nightingale as from prophet heights Sings to the Earth of her million Mays - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! Envoy And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
	—William E. Henley

Poem of the Month: July 2007

Flags of Freedom
	Today's the day our younger son Is going off to war, We've sometimes won before. Flags that line old main street Are blowin' in the wind: These must be the flags of freedom flyin' Church bells are ringin' As the families stand and wave. Some of them are cryin' But the soldiers look so brave, Lookin' straight ahead Like they know just where they're goin' Past the flags of freedom flyin'
	Sister has her headphones on, She hears the music blasting; She sees her brother marchin' by - Their bond is everlasting - Listening to Bob Dylan singin' in 1963 Watching the flags of freedom flyin' She sees the president speakin' On a flat-screen TV In the window of the old appliance store. She turns to see her brother again But he's already walkin' past The flags of freedom flyin'
	Have you seen the flags of freedom? What color are they now? Do you think that you believe in yours More than they do theirs somehow When you see the flags of freedom flyin'? Today's the day our younger son Is goin' off to war Fightin' in the age old battle We've sometimes won before. Flags that line old main street Are blowin' in the wind These must be the flags of freedom flyin'
	—Neil Young

Poem of the Month: August 2007

August, 1842 with a remembrance of August, 1807
	I gaze, where August's sunbeam falls Along these grey and lonely walls, Till in its light absorbed appears The lapse of five-and-thirty years. If change there be, I trace it not In all this consecrated spot: No new imprint of Ruin's march On roofless wall and frameless arch: The hills, the woods, the fields, the stream, Are basking in the self-same beam: The fall, that turns the unseen mill As then it murmured, murmurs still: It seems, as if in one were cast The present and the imaged past, Spanning, as with bridge sublime, That awful lapse of human time, That gulph, unfathomably spread Between the living and the dead.
	For all too well my spirit feels The only change this place reveals: The sunbeams play, the breezes stir, Unseen, unfelt, unheard by her, Who, on that long-past August day, First saw with me those ruins grey. Whatever span the fates allow, Ere I shall be as she is now, Still in my bosom's inmost cell Shall that deep-treasured memory dwell: That, more than language can express, Pure miracle of loveliness, Whose voice so sweet, whose eyes so bright, Were my soul's music, and its light, In those blest days, when life was new, And hope was false, but love was true
	—Thomas Love Peacock

Poem of the Month: September 2007

A Calendar of Sonnets: September
	O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped! The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped; And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped
	The purple grape,--last thing to ripen, late By very reason of its precious cost. O Heart, remember, vintages are lost If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait. Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate, Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!
	—Helen Jackson

Poem of the Month: October 2007

October Arriving
	I only have a measly ant To think with today. Others have pictures of saints, Others have clouds in the sky. The winter might be at the door, For he’s all alone And in a hurry to hide. Nevertheless, unable to decide
	He retraces his steps Several times and finds himself On a huge blank wall That has no window. Dark masses of trees Cast their mazes before him, Only to erase them next With a sly, sea-surging sound.
	—Charles Simic

Poem of the Month: November 2007

November Night
	Listen... With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees And fall.
	—Adelaide Crapsey

Flame-Heart
	So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years; I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice And what month brings the shy forget-me-not; Forgotten is the special, startling season Of some beloved tree’s flowering and fruiting, What time of year the ground doves brown the fields And fill the noonday with their curious fluting: I have forgotten much, but still remember The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.
	I still recall the honey-fever grass, But I cannot bring back to mind just when We rooted them out of the ping-wing path To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen. I often try to think in what sweet month The languid painted ladies used to dapple The yellow bye road mazing from the main, Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple: I have forgotten, strange, but quite remember The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.
	What weeks, what months, what time o’ the mild year We cheated school to have our fling at tops? What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy Feasting upon blackberries in the copse? Oh, some I know! I have embalmed the days, Even the sacred moments, when we played, All innocent of passion uncorrupt, At noon and evening in the flame-heart’s shade: We were so happy, happy,—I remember Beneath the poinsettia’s red in warm December.
	—Claude McKay

Happy New Year
	How beautiful the turning of the year! A moment artificial yet profound: Point upon an arbitrary chart Passing like a breath upon the heart, Yearning with anticipation wound, New hope new harbored in old-fashioned cheer. Even when the boundary line is clear, We recognize the oneness of the ground. Years, like circles, do not end or start Except we lay across their truth our art, Adjusting dates as they go round and round Revolving to a tune long sung and dear.
	—Nicholas Gordon

Happy New Year

How beautiful the turning of the year!
A moment artificial yet profound:
Point upon an arbitrary chart
Passing like a breath upon the heart,
Yearning with anticipation wound,
New hope new harbored in old-fashioned cheer.
Even when the boundary line is clear,
We recognize the oneness of the ground.
Years, like circles, do not end or start
Except we lay across their truth our art,
Adjusting dates as they go round and round
Revolving to a tune long sung and dear.

—Nicholas Gordon

The Mockingbird
	Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?
	—Sidney Lanier

The Mockingbird

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along
sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song
Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.
Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull insect be
The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?

—Sidney Lanier

Poem of the Month: March 2008

More forest and more
	More forest, and more. The day darkens, Blue grows beneath, and in the meadows grass With frosty dew grows pale... The gray owl awakens. To the west the line of pines Stretches like an army of guards, And the sun, smoldering like the Firebird, Burns their ancient wilderness.
	—Ivan Bunin (tr me)

1 VII from Withered Leaves
	Your eyes are like the sea peaceful, shining: the ancient grief of my heart sinks in them, as into dust Your eyes are like a spring clean and pearl-bottomed; and hope, like summer lightning flashes at me from them.
	—Ivan Franko (tr me)

Faith and Fate
	To horse, my dear, and out into the night! Stirrup and saddle and away, away! Into the darkness, into the affright, Into the unknown on our trackless way! Past bridge and town missiled with flying feet, 5 Into the wilderness our riding thrills; The gallop echoes through the startled street, And shrieks like laughter in the demoned hills; Things come to meet us with fantastic frown, And hurry past with maniac despair; 10 Death from the stars looks ominously down— Ho, ho, the dauntless riding that we dare! East, to the dawn, or west or south or north! Loose rein upon the neck of Fate—and forth!
	—Richard Hovey

Faith and Fate

To horse, my dear, and out into the night!
Stirrup and saddle and away, away!
Into the darkness, into the affright,
Into the unknown on our trackless way!
Past bridge and town missiled with flying feet, 5
Into the wilderness our riding thrills;
The gallop echoes through the startled street,
And shrieks like laughter in the demoned hills;
Things come to meet us with fantastic frown,
And hurry past with maniac despair; 10
Death from the stars looks ominously down—
Ho, ho, the dauntless riding that we dare!
East, to the dawn, or west or south or north!
Loose rein upon the neck of Fate—and forth!

—Richard Hovey

Hyla Brook
	By June our brook’s run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)— Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way its waters went. Its bed is left a faded paper sheet Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat— A brook to none but who remember long. This as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. We love the things we love for what they are
	—Robert Frost

Hyla Brook

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)—
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are

—Robert Frost

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