 | Vigil and vision |  |
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THE MONTHS.
JANUARY.
THIS is the bitter birth-month of the year.The sun looms large against the leaden sky,
Rayless and red, as 'twere a giant's eye,
That through the mists of death abroad doth peer:
The fettered earth is dumb for frosty cheer,
Veiling its face to let the blast go by.
Who said, “Spring cometh”? Out upon the lie!
Spring's dead and buried: January's here.
Shut to the door; heap logs upon the fire.
If in your heart there harbour yet some heat,
Some sense of flowers and light and Summer-sweet,
In some half-fabulous dream of days foregone
Remembered, feed withal hope's funeral pyre,
So you may live to look upon the dawn.
FEBRUARY.
HOW long, o Lord, how long the Winter's woes?Is it to purge the world of sin and stain
That in its winding-sheet it stands again
For penance, pining in the shrouded snows?
Methinks, I do remember of the rose
To have heard fable in some far domain
Of old fantastic dreams and fancies vain;
But what in sooth it was, God only knows!
Was ever aught but Winter in the lands?
Was ever snow-time past and Springtime come,
To bless the brown earth with her flowerful hands?
Well nigh the cuckoo's call, the wild bee's hum
Have we forgot. Yet, through the chill snow-cope,
The kindly crocus blooms and bids us hope.
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MARCH.
MARCH comes at last, the labouring lands to free.Rude blusterer, with thy cloud-compelling blast,
The pining plains from cark of Winter past
That clear'st and carpetest each bush and tree
With daffodil and wood-anemone,
A voice from the illimitable Vast
Of dreams thou art, the tale that doth forecast
Of hope yet live and happiness to be.
And hark, the robin fluting on the bough,
The rough breeze tangling on his tender breast
The ruddy plumes! Yet sings he, unopprest,
The awakening year, the blessed burgeoning
In wood and weald, the Then becoming Now
And all the pleasant presage of the Spring.
APRIL.
SWEET April, with thy mingling tears and smiles,Dear maid-child of the changing months that art,
What wit so blunt, what breast with sorrow's smart
So sore but must confess thy tender wiles?
What woes but thy capricious charm beguiles?
At thy sweet sight, the winter-thoughts depart
And with glad lips men say and gleeful heart,
“Belike we yet shall greet the Golden Isles”.
Pale as thy primrose, as thy violets sweet,
Thy varying stint thou fill'st of dainty days;
Yet, though thy bright prime passeth, still shall praise
And blessing follow on thy flitting feet
Nor Summer's sheen thy memory make less dear,
That bring'st the first-fruits of the flowering year.
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MAY.
THE wild bird carolled all the April night,Among the leafing limes, as who should say,
“Lovers, have heed; here cometh in your May,
“When you shall walk in woods and heart's delight
“Have in the fresh-flowered fields and Spring's sweet sight!”
And truly, with the breaking of the day,
Came the glad month and all the world was gay
With lilac-breath and blossoms red and white.
Oh moon of love, how shall the snowtide do
To wind the world again with winter-death,
Whilst in our hearts the thought of thee is blent
With memories more sweet than honey-dew
Of all thy nights and days of ravishment,
Thy birds, thy cowslips and thy hawthorn's breath?
JUNE.
THE empress of the year, the meadows' queen,Back from the East, with all her goodly train,
Is come, to glorify the world again
With length of light and middle Summer-sheen.
In every plot, upon her throne of green,
Bright blooms the rose; with birds and blossom-rain
And perfume ecstasied are wood and plain
And Winter is as if it ne'er had been.
Oh June, liege-lady of the flowering prime,
Now that thrush, finch, lark, linnet, ousel, wren
Thy praises pipe, to the Iranian bard
How shall we hearken, who, the highwaymen
Autumn and Winter, warns us, follow hard
On thy fair feet and bide their baleful time?
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JULY.
THE meadows slumber in the golden shine;Full-mirrored in the river's glass serene,
Stirless, the blue sky sleeps; knee-deep in green,
Nigh o'er-content for grazing are the kine.
The russet hops hang ripening on the bine;
The birds are mute; no clouds there are between
The slumbering lands to come and the sun's sheen;
The day is drowsed with Summer's wildering wine.
Peace over all is writ: fought is the fight;
From Winter for the nonce the field is won
And the tired earth can slumber in the sun
And dream her summer-dreams of still increase;
Whilst, as the long rays lengthen to the night,
The breeze o'er all the landscape murmurs “Peace!”
AUGUST.
AUGUST, thou monarch of the mellow noon,That with thy sceptre smit'st the teeming plain
And gladd'nest all the world with golden grain,
How oft have I, beneath thy harvest moon,
Hearkened the cushat's soft insistent croon,
As to the night she told her soul in pain,
Or heard the corn-crake to his mate complain,
When all things slept, beneath the sun aswoon!
The world with sun and sheen is overfed
And the faint heart, its need once done away,
Soon waxes weary of the summer-day
And the sun blazing in the blue o'erhead,
“Would God that it were night!” is apt to say
And “Would the summer-heats were oversped!”
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SEPTEMBER.
HOW is the world of Summer's splendours shorn!The rose has had its day; from weald and wold
Past is the blossom-pomp, the harvest-gold;
The fields are orphaned of the ripened corn.
The meads, of their lush livery forlorn,
Lie bare and cheerless; Summer's tale is told
And Autumn reigns; the world is waxing old,
Its youth forspent in Plenty's heaped-up horn.
Yet, though the leaves, September, sere and brown
Show on thy time-awearied trees, in sign
Of life burned low, retreating to the root,
With jewels rich and rare, whose like no mine
On earth might yield, bound are thy brows for crown,
Purple and gold and red, of ripening fruit.
OCTOBER.
OCTOBER, May of the descending days,Mid-Spring of Autumn, on the shortening stair
Of the year's eld abiding still and fair,
A pause of peace, when all the world at gaze,
'Neath the mild mirage of thy sun-filled haze,
Chewing the cud of Summer's sweets that were,
Lingers, unmindful of the Winter's care,
Yet in thy russet woods and leaf-strewn ways;
Sweet was the Summer, sweeter yet the Spring;
But in these mist-attempered noons of thine,
Hung with the clustering jewels of the vine,
And in thy ruddock's clear, contented lay,
A charm of solace is, that in no thing
To Summer-suns may yield or blossoms gay.
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NOVEMBER.
THE tale of wake is told; the stage is bare,The curtain falls upon the ended play;
November's fogs arise, to hide away
The withered wrack of that which was so fair:
Summer is gone to be with things that were.
The sun is fallen from his ancient sway;
The night primaeval trenches on the day:
Without the Winter waits upon the stair.
Stern herald of the wintry wrath to come,
The mist-month treads upon October's feet,
Muting the small birds' song, the insects' hum,
And all involving in its winding-sheet,
Graves on the frontal of the failing year,
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here!”
DECEMBER.
THE roofs are dreary with the drifted rimeAnd in the air a stillness as of death
Th'approach of some portentousness foresaith.
December comes, the tyrant of the time,
Vaunt-courier of the cold hybernal clime.
Mute is the world for misery; no breath
Nor stir of sound there is, that welcometh
The coming of the Winter's woeful prime.
“Alack! Was ever such a thing as Spring?”
We say, hand-holding to the hearths of Yule.
“Did ever roses blow or throstles sing?”
And in our ears the wild blast shrilleth; “Fool,
“That, in this world of ruin and decay,
“Thy heart's hopes buildedst on the Summer day!”
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