October: Hallowe'en Theme

This session was held in the Kopff's back yard, around the fire.  The poems were fittingly spooky and macabre.  Will McDonald recited The Raven.  Tom Kopff sang The Long Black Veil.

Vespers, By Dora Greenwell

Vespers

When I have said my quiet say,

When I have sung my little song,

How sweetly, sweetly dies that day,

The valley and the hill along;

How sweet the summons, ‘Come away’,

That calls me from the busy throng.

I thought beside the water’s flow

A while to lie beneath the leaves,

I thought in Autumn’s harvest glow

To rest my head upon the sheaves;

But lo! Methinks the day was brief

And cloudy; flower, nor fruit nor leaf

I bring, and yet accepted, free

And blest, my Lord, I come to Thee.

What matter now for promise lost

Through blast of spring or summer rains!

What matter now for purpose crost,

For broken hopes and wasted pains!

What if the olive little yields!

What if the grape be blighted!  Thine

The corn upon a thousand fields,

Upon a thousand hills the vine.

My spirit bare before Thee stands;

I bring no gift, I ask no sign,

I come to Thee with empty hands,

The surer to be filled from Thine.

By Dora Greenwell

Found in the book A Diary of Readings by John Baillie, for Day 4

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1955

September Theme: Fall, Harvest Time

Will McDonald regaled us with a memorable rendition of "When the Frost is on the Pumpkin" by James Whitcomb Riley.
Tom Kopff read a poem by Dora Greenwell called Vespers which, amazingly enough, I have been unable to find on the web.  I will post it in a separate entry later.