Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Can you believe we've almost reached the end of another Poetry Month? I have lots of catching up to do on so many of the wonderful month-long projects conjured up and celebrated around the Kidlitosphere. Fortunately, Jama's round up post of all the April goodness can guide us even after Sunday has passed.
With the heaviness and stress of the daily news, I thought I'd offer up another old poem from the "Poems in a Playful Mood" section of NARRATIVE AND LYRIC POEMS FOR STUDENTS edited by S. S. Seward, Jr., published by Henry Holt and Company in 1909. (Seward was evidently an assistant professor of English at Stanford University.)
Here's a "playful" poem that seems just right for our perch on the far edge of April. National Poetry Month wasn't launched until 1996, so April did not have such a designation more than a century ago.
Let's just carry on the poetry love into May, shall we?
PROSE AND RHYME
by Austin Dobson
When the roads are heavy with mire and rut,
In November fogs, in December snows,
When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,
There is place and enough for the pains of prose; --
But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,
And the jasmine-stars to the casement climb,
And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,
Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!
When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,
Whenthe reason stands on its squarest toes,
When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"
There is place enough for the pains of prose; --
But whenever the May blood stirs and glows,
And the young year draws to a "golden prime," --
And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,
Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!
In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant strut
In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"
In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"
There is place enough for the pains of prose; --
But whenever a soft glance softer grows,
And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,
And the secret is told "that no one knows,"
Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!
ENVOY
In the work-a-day world, -- for its needs and woes,
There is place enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,
Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!
Follow the poetry ripples over to the Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted this week by the ever-talented & generous Jone Rush MacCulloch.