Weekly/Fortnightly Poetry Suggestions

[mungojerry311]

Here's a nice one I've found. I can BC this one whenever the next opening is. It's called "Sunset" by Archibald Lampman. This one hasn't been done previously:

Hi Mark, you can set this up for tomorrow's Weekly if you wish. (sorry I didn't see your post sooner.)

I will do that for sure!

[Newgatenovelist]

To mark December I'll suggest a seasonal poem by a new poet:

Ring the Bells

Ring the bells,
Ring the bells,
Ring the merry Christmas bells,
And let their voice resound
Around, around,
Till o’er the leas and o’er the fells
The gladsome echo loudly tells
How we to-day
Are blithe and gay,
And how for all sad hearts we pray.
Ring the bells,
Ring the bells,
Ring the joyful Christmas bells!

Ring the bells,
Ring the bells,
Ring the merry Christmas bells.
So ring them high and low,
O’er ice and snow,
O’er craggèd hills and silent dells,
While round the earth the message swells
How we to-day
Are blithe and gay,
And how for all sad hearts we pray.
Ring the bells,
Ring the bells,
Ring the joyful Christmas bells!

The text is taken from:
https://archive.org/details/christmasposyofc00lind/page/36/mode/2up

I don't think the author is in the catalogue yet. Her name is Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Lindsay and her dates are 1844-1912. I don't have a project summary, but if it would help in creating an author page I wrote the following:

Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Lindsay was a poet, novelist, painter, musician and patron of the arts. She provided most of the funding for the founding of the Grosvenor Gallery.

Her dates and basic biographic info are to be found on the London National Portrait Gallery's website:
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp05514/caroline-blanche-elizabeth-nee-fitzroy-lady-lindsay


Erin

[aradlaw]

Thank you Erin.
Probably starting as a Weekly on Dec 4th.

[mungojerry311]

I'd like to suggest Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, better known as the carol "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day." This hasn't been done as either a weekly or fortnightly as far as I've been able to figure out. As always I'm willing to BC it whenever the next opening is. This would especially be appropriate for Christmas week. As usual here is the complete text of the poem:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

[aradlaw]

I'd like to suggest Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, better known as the carol "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day." This hasn't been done as either a weekly or fortnightly as far as I've been able to figure out.

No, this poem has been included in a few LV Carol Collections over the years, the last one in 2016. If you wish, you can set this up as a Fortnightly either today or tomorrow if you get the chance. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Owlivia]

https://poetandpoem.com/Roderic-Quinn
Roderic Quinn 1867-1949 (brother of Patrick Edward Quinn) was born in Sydney. His Irish parents had migrated, in 1853, to Australia. He received his education in Sydney together with his life long friends C.J.Brennan and E.J.Brady. He studied law for a while, then worked as a country schoolteacher. When he returned to Sydney he took a position as a freelance journalist. He wrote short stories for the 'Bulletin', and made a modest living from his poetry from the 1890s to the mid 1920s. His work was extremely appreciated by his contemporaries. He was linked with Victor Daly as poets of the 'Celtic Twilight’.

https://poetandpoem.com/Roderic-Quinn/The-Song-of-the-Cicadas

The Song of the Cicadas:
Yesterday there came to me
from a green and graceful tree
as I loitered listlessly
nothing doing, nothing caring,
light and warmth and fragrance sharing
with the butterfly and the bee,
while the sapling-tops a-glisten
danced and trembled, wild and willing
such a sudden sylvan shrilling
that I could not choose but listen
Green Cicadas, Black Cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather,
Floury-baker, Double-Drummer,
all as one and all together,
how they voiced the golden summer.

Stealing back there came to me
as I loitered listlessly
'neath the green and graceful tree,
nothing doing, nothing caring,
boyhood moments spent in sharing
with the butterfly and the bee
youth and freedom, warmth and glamour
while Cicadas round me shrilling,
set the sleepy noontide thrilling
with their keen insistent clamour.

Green Cicadas, Black cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather
Floury-bakers, double-drummers
all as one and all together---
how they voice the bygone summers!

[TriciaG]

Aside from it being all over the internet, I haven't found definitive evidence of the publication date of that poem. I looked in a couple of his PD poetry books and did a search at HathiTrust and Archive "within texts" and still couldn't find it.

[pmessina]

David, I'd like to suggest "The Cross of Snow" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
   A gentle face — the face of one long dead —
   Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
   The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Here in this room she died; and soul more white
   Never through martyrdom of fire was led
   To its repose; nor can in books be read
   The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West
   That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
   Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
   These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
   And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

I recently visited Longfellow's home in Cambridge, Mass., and learned that this was published posthumously. The docent said Longfellow wrote it for himself. You probably know how his wife died.

Regards,

Paula Messina

[Inkell]

I'd like to recommend 'A Popular Personage at Home' by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) which I don't think has been done before, it's about his dog Wessex from the dog's POV. Or if anyone else has any ideas about poems celebrating dogs, I was having trouble finding ones that were public domain, not too long for this or hadn't already been done

'I live here: "Wessex" is my name:
I am a dog known rather well:
I guard the house but how that came
To be my whim I cannot tell.

'With a leap and a heart elate I go
At the end of an hour’s expectancy
To take a walk of a mile or so
With the folk I let live here with me.

'Along the path, amid the grass
I sniff, and find out rarest smells
For rolling over as I pass
The open fields toward the dells.

'No doubt I shall always cross this sill,
And turn the corner, and stand steady,
Gazing back for my Mistress till
She reaches where I have run already,

'And that this meadow with its brook,
And bulrush, even as it appears
As I plunge by with hasty look,
Will stay the same a thousand years.’

Thus "Wessex". But a dubious ray
At times informs his steadfast eye,
Just for a trice, as though to say,
'Yet, will this pass, and pass shall I?'

[aradlaw]

I'd like to recommend 'A Popular Personage at Home' by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) which I don't think has been done before,

Thanks Inkell, would you have a link for this poem?

eta: I found it in here...
https://archive.org/details/humanshowsfarpha0000hard/page/212/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Popular+Personage

[alanmapstone]

I'd like to recommend 'A Popular Personage at Home' by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) which I don't think has been done before, it's about his dog Wessex from the dog's POV. Or if anyone else has any ideas about poems celebrating dogs, I was having trouble finding ones that were public domain, not too long for this or hadn't already been done

Hi Inkell
If you want poems about dogs there are a few nice ones here. The Vagabonds in particular would a good fortnightly poem.

https://librivox.org/the-good-dog-book-by-various-authors/

[Inkell]

Thanks Inkell, would you have a link for this poem?

eta: I found it in here...
https://archive.org/details/humanshowsfarpha0000hard/page/212/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Popular+Personage

Unfortunately I didn't, not to any of the normal PD kind of websites we use anyway, I meant to have a look but obviously you found it before I did.

Hi Inkell
If you want poems about dogs there are a few nice ones here. The Vagabonds in particular would a good fortnightly poem.

https://librivox.org/the-good-dog-book-by-various-authors/

Thanks for the recommendation, Alan, I'm not sure if it's too long but that's also quite a nice one and an interesting looking book

[redrun]

I've a suggestion for a fortnightly: "They Didn't Think", by Phoebe Cary. Looks like we've done a few of hers, but not this one yet.

This one's special to my dad, because his grandmother used to recite it for him when he was little. Now that I've found the actual title, I'll be recording it myself, and thought folks here might find it an enjoyable read as well.

Found a scan, since I don't know whether Hymnary.org has the necessary copyright information. Sure helped in finding it, though!
https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksal00carygoog/page/n365/mode/1up

I'll be happy to BC if you like. I believe the next fortnightly is due this coming Sunday.

[aradlaw]

Thanks redrun, that looks like a fun poem, I'll llok forward to it this Sunday.

Alternate source - https://archive.org/details/poeticala00cary/page/422/mode/2up?q=%22They+Didn%27t+Think%22

[TriciaG]

This was in my current short solo. It's not Shakespeare, but it's nice, IMHO.

THE NEW COUNTRY.
BY AN OLD SETTLER, OVER 70 YEARS OF AGE.

In Darlington was my abode,
Full seventy years ago;
And when good meat we wished to eat,
We killed the buck or doe;
For fish we used the hook and line,
And pounded corn to make it fine;
On Johnny Cake we used to dine,
In the New Country.

Our occupation was to make
The lofty forest bow;
With axes good, we chopped the wood,
For well we all knew how;
We cleared the land for rye and wheat,
For strangers and ourselves to eat;
From maple trees we gathered sweet,
In the New Country.

Our roads were winding through the woods,
Where oft the savage trod;
They were not wide, nor scarce a guide,
But all the ones we had.
Our houses, too, were logs of wood,
Rolled up in squares, and corked with mud:
If the bark was tight, the roof was good,
For a New Country.

The Indians ofttimes made us fear
That there was danger nigh;
The shaggy bear was ofttimes where
The pig was, in his stye.
The savage wolves our children dread—
Ofttimes our fearful mothers said,
Some beast of prey will take my babe,
In the New Country.

We lived in social harmony,
And drank the purling stream;
No Lawyer, Priest, nor Doctor there,
Was scarcely to be seen.
Our health it needed not repair—-
No pious man forgot his prayer—
And who could fee a lawyer there,
In a New Country?

Of deerskins we made moccasins,
To wear upon our feet;
The checkered shirt was thought no hurt,
Good company to keep.
And when a visit was to pay,
On a winter’s night, or winter’s day,
The oxen drew the ladies’ sleigh,
In the New Country.

https://archive.org/details/historyofearlyse00cole_1

The book was published in 1875, so the chances of "the old settler" being copyrighted for Life+ countries is pretty slim.
The author of the book (John T. Coleman), I cannot find information on, and none of the accounts in the book were first person to pull evidence from. If he were as young as 20 when he published this book (highly unlikely), he'd have been born in 1855. He'd have lived to be 97, then, to die in 1952 and be PD for Life+70. I think we can safely assume he's PD everywhere.

I'd probably put this in the database as author "unknown" but use "AN OLD SETTLER" as the author in the verbal intro. *shrug*