November poems 2

 

 

 

                              

Rita Dove

August 28 1952

 

November for Beginners

 

Snow would be the easy

 way out - that softening

 sky like a sigh of relief

 at finally being allowed

 to yield.  No dice.

 We stack twigs for burning

 in glistening patches

 but the rain won't give.

 

 So we wait, breeding

 mood, making music

 of decline.  We sit down

 in the smell of the past

 and rise in a light

 that is already leaving.

 We ache in secret,

 memorizing

 

 a gloomy line

 or two of German.

 When spring comes

 we promise to act

 the fool.  Pour,

 rain!  Sail, wind,

 with your cargo of zithers!

 

 

 

   Thomas Hardy

   June 2, 1840   –   January 11, 1928                

   

                               At Day-Close In November                           

 

                               The ten hours' light is abating,

                              And a late bird flies across,

                              Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,

                              Give their black heads a toss.

 

                              Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,

                              Float past like specks in the eye;

                              I set every tree in my June time,

                              And now they obscure the sky.

 

                              And the children who ramble through here

                              Conceive that there never has been

                              A time when no tall trees grew here,

                              A time when none will be seen.

 

 

 

Adelaide Crapsey

September 9, 1878   –   October 8, 1914

 

November Night

 

Listen. With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

 

 

 

Edward Thomas

March 3, 1878   –   April 9, 1917

 

There's Nothing Like The Sun

 

There’s nothing like the sun as the year dies,

Kind as it can be, this world being made so,

To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,

To all things that it touches except snow,

Whether on mountain side or street of town.

The south wall warms me: November has begun,

Yet never shone the sun as fair as now

While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough

With spangles of the morning's storm drop down

Because the starling shakes it, whistling what

Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot

That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,

Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,

Or January's, or February's, great days:

And August, September, October, and December

Have equal days, all different from November.

No day of any month but I have said--

Or, if I could live long enough, should say--

"There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day"

walk will There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.

 

 

 

AE Housman      

March 26, 1859   –   April 30, 1936

 

The Night Is Freezing Fast

 

The night is freezing fast,

   To-morrow comes December;

        And winterfalls of old

Are with me from the past;

    And chiefly I remember

        How Dick would hate the cold.

 

 Fall, winter, fall; for he,

    Prompt hand and headpiece clever,

        Has woven a winter robe,

And made of earth and sea

    His overcoat for ever,

        And wears the turning globe.

 

 

--Cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Remembering

And There Was a Great Calm

BY THOMAS HARDY

(On the Signing of the Armistice, 11 Nov. 1918)

 

                                              I

There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,

And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,

Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,

Among the young, among the weak and old,

And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”

 

 

                                       II

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught

Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,

Philosophies that sages long had taught,

And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,

And “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness.

 

 

                                       III

The feeble folk at home had grown full-used

To 'dug-outs', 'snipers', 'Huns', from the war-adept

In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;

To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused—

To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.

 

 

                                       IV

Waking to wish existence timeless, null,

Sirius they watched above where armies fell;

He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull

Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull

Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.

 

 

                                       V

So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly

Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!'

One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,

'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,

And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'

 

 

                                       VI

Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance

To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,

As they had raised it through the four years’ dance

Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;

And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'

 

 

                                       VII

Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,

The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.

One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot

And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, 'What?

Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?'

 

 

                                       VIII

Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray,

No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,

No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;

Worn horses mused: 'We are not whipped to-day;'

No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.

 

 

                                       IX

Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;

There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;

Some could, some could not, shake off misery:

The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!'

 

 

 

--Cat

And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'