i/il NATURE kt Neui ^atk nntt (QalUge of Agticultute At (Hacnell Inioecaitg Jtliaca, SI. 9. Cornell University Library PS 310.G2M4 3 1924 014 495 455 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014495455 ALL THE YEAR IN THE GARDEN ^ ^ ALL THE YEAR IN THE GARDEN A NATURE CALENDAR EDITED BY ESTHER MATSON NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS i^ X. *^ COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1 906 D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON FOREWORD IN excuse for this little compilation I would rather say no word of my own, but point to that verse of Stevenson's which may be read on turning over a page or two. In proof, however, of the kindness of certain pub- lishers, I would linger a moment to express my thanks for courtesies extended by the firms who hold copy- right in the following wise : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, for lines from Thomas Bailey Aldrich, John Burroughs, Helen Gray Cone, Margaret De- land, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Willian Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Lucy Larcom, James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edith M. Thomas, Celia Thaxter, John T. Trowbridge, Ade- line D. T. Whitney, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, John G. Whittier and Charles Dudley Warner; D. Appleton & Co., New York, for selections from William Cullen Bryant ; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for selections from Elaine Goodale Eastman and Sarah J. Day; Small, Maynard & Co., Cam- bridge, for lines from John B. Tabb's verse ; Harper & Brothers, New York, for selections from Charles Algernon Swinburne ; and Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, for selections from Austin Dobson. I would also thank for their pleasant personal cour- [v] tesies Mr. Edward Emerson, Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, Miss Sarah J. Day, Mrs. Margaret Deland and Mr. James Russell Hayes. And now, if it be not too fanciful, I have a trust that as for the little verses themselves they will be nothing loath to come together in so fragrant a cause as that of praising gardens. ESTHER MATSON Brooklyn, April, 1906 ARGUMENT Make you the tour of the world, — for me, I will make the tour of my Garden. Ton will . . . describe to me some far-off country ; I will delineate what my garden affords. The seasons as they pass away are climates which travel round the globe and come to seek me. . . . Tour long voyages are nothing but fatiguing visits which you go to pay to the seasons that would themselves have come to you. ALPHONSE KARR Tour round my Garden This was ever among the number of my wishes: a por- tion of ground not over large, in which was a garden . . . and a little "woodland besides. The gods have done more abundantly and better for me than this. . . . Here there is no one who reduces my possession with envious eye, nor poisons them with malice and biting slander ; the neighbors smile at me removing clods and stones. HORACE ENVOY GO, little book, and wish to all, Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin ofuiine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Underwoods I JANUARY JANUARY JANUARY FIRST FIRSTLY thou, churl son of Janus, Rough for cold, in drugget clad, Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us, — Firstly thou, churl son of Janus. Caverned now is old Sylvanus; Numb and chill are maid and lad. AUSTIN DOBSON Masque of the Months JANUARY SECOND Hail, January, that barest here On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year That weeps and trembles to be born. Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright, Hooded and cloaked and shod with white, Whose eyes are stars that match the morn, Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow. Thy feet enkindle stars of snow. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ji Yearns Carols JANUARY THIRD The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. WILLIAM COWPER •The Task [3 ] JANUARY FOURTH And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying : " Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse. Who sang to him, night and day. The rhymes of the universe. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW T^he Fiftieth Birthday of Agassit JANUARY FIFTH The gates ajar. If I might peep : Ah, what a haunt of rest and sleep The shadowy garden seems ! AUSTIN DOBSON At the Convent Gate JANUARY SIXTH Here be shadows large and long ; Here be spaces meet for song ; Grant, O garden-god, that I — Now that none profane is nigh, Now that mood and moment please — Find the fair Pierides. AUSTIN DOBSON A Garden Song JANUARY SEVENTH The country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the winter than in the summer. The wild comes out. The urban, the cultivated, is hidden or negatived. You shall hardly know a good [4] field from a poor, a meadow from a pasture, a park from a forest. Lines and boundaries are disregarded ; gates and bar-ways are unclosed ; man lets go his hold upon the earth ; title-deeds are deep buried beneath the snow ; the best-kept grounds relapse to a state of nature. JOHN BURROUGHS A Year in the Fields JANUARY EIGHTH Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives, Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite; And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ^he Vision of Sir haunfal JANUARY NINTH For now, behold, the joyous winter-days. Frosty, succeed ; and through the blue serene. For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies — Killing infectious damps, and the spent air Storing afresh with elemental life. JAMES THOMSON Winter JANUARY TENTH I 've often wished that I had clear. For life, six hundred pounds a year; A handsome house to lodge a friend ; A river at my garden's end ; [ 5 ] A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood. Well, now, I have all this and more. JONATHAN SWIFT Imitation of Horace JANUARY ELEVENTH Give me, O indulgent Fate, Give me yet, before I die, A sweet but absolute retreat 'Mongst paths so lost, and trees so high. That the world may ne'er invade Through such windings and such shade. My unshaken liberty. COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA A No&urnal Reverie JANUARY TWELFTH If Heaven the grateful liberty would give That I might choose my method how to live ; And all those hours propitious fate should lend, In blissful ease and satisfaftion spend ; Near some fair town I 'd have a private seat, Built uniform, not little, nor too great. Better, if on a rising ground it stood ; On this side fields, on that a neighboring wood. A little garden grateful to the eye, And a cool rivulet run murmuring by ; On whose delicious banks a stately row Of shady limes or sycamores should grow. JOHN POMFRET The Choice [6] JANUARY THIRTEENTH Farewell, thou busy world and may We never meet again ; Good God, how sweet are all things here ! How beautiful the fields appear ! How cleanly do we feed and lie ! Lord, what good hours do we keep ! How quietly we sleep ! What peace, what unanimity ! CHARLES COTTON T^he Retirement JANUARY FOURTEENTH Every tree and branch incrusted with the bright and delicate congelation of hoar-frost, white and pure as snow and defined as carved ivory. How beautiful it is, how various, how filling, how satiat- ing to the eye and to the mind — above all, how melancholy. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our Village JANUARY FIFTEENTH Now is the time To visit Nature in her grand attire. JAMES GRAHAME Sabbath JANUARY SIXTEENTH While Nature adorns eternity with ever-changing appearances, God remains adlively employed in ceaselessly creating materials for the formation of other worlds. IMMANUEL KANT l^he Sense of the Beautiful [7] JANUARY SEVENTEENTH There are two books from which I colledt my Di- vinity : beside the written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universal and publick manu- script, that lies expans'd unto the eyes of all ; those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other. SIR THOMAS BROWNE Religio Medici JANUARY EIGHTEENTH But Winter has yet brighter scenes — he boasts Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A Winter Piece JANUARY NINETEENTH Rosemary and Rue; these keep Seeming and savor all the winter long. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The Winter's Tale JANUARY TWENTIETH St. Agnes' Eve, — Ah, bitter chill it was ! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass. And silent was the flock in woolly fold. JOHN KEATS The Eve of St. Agnes JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST It seems idolatry with some excuse When our forefather Druids in their oaks Imagined sanftity. WILLIAM COWPER Tardley Oak [8 ] JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indis- tindt in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and pro- phetic. Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Evangeline JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD There are never two works of equal beauty of any kind, just as there are never two moments of equal pleasure : seize the one you have, and make much of it, for such a moment will never return. RICHARD JEFFERIES Nature in the Louvre JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH All the batteries of life are spiked. We see the move- ment of life as a deaf man sees it, — a mere wraith of the clamorous existence that inflidls itself on our ears when the ground is bare. The earth is clothed in innocence as a garment. Every wound of the landscape is healed. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL A Good Word for Winter JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH See in the falling snow the old cooling, and precipi- tation and the shooting, radiating forms that are the architedts of planet and globe. JOHN BURROUGHS A Tear in the Fields [9] JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth ; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death ; yet snow is but the mask of the life-giving rain ; it, too, is the friend of man — the tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fer- tilizing snow. JOHN BURROUGHS A Year in the Fields JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH The mist still hovers round the distant hills ; But the blue sky above us has a clear And pearly softness ; not a white speck lies Upon its breast ; it is a crystal dome. There is a quiet charm about this morn Which sinks into the soul. ANONYMOUS JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost, Wherein the birds were wont to build their bow'r, And now are clothed with moss and hoary frost. Instead of blooms wherewith your buds did flow'r ; I see your tears that from your boughs do rain ; Whose drops in dreary icicles remain. EDMUND SPENSER The Shepherd's Calendar JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH Much can they praise the trees so straight and high. The sailing pine ; the cedar proud and tall. EDMUND SPENSER The Faery S^ueen [ '° ] JANUARY THIRTIETH Ivy and privet, dark as night, I wear with hips and haws a cheerful show, And holly for a beauty and delight. And milky mistletoe, CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Ike Months The Evergreen stern winter's power derides, Like Hope that in misfortune's storm abides. SARAH J. HALE The Floral Interpreter JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year. I please my- self with the graces of the winter scenery, and be- lieve that we are as much touched by it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a pifture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Beauty [" ] II FEBRUARY FEBRUARY FEBRUARY FIRST WAN February with weeping cheer, Whose cold hand guides the youngling year Down misty roads of mire and rime, Before thy pale and fitful face The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace Through skies the morning scarce may climb. Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears. But lit with hopes that light the years. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE jl Year's Carols FEBRUARY SECOND Down with the rosemary and bayes, Down with the mistletoe. Instead of holly now upraise The greener box, for show. The holly hitherto did sway ; Let box now domineere Until the dancing Easter-day, Or Easter's eve appeare. ROBERT HERRICK Candlemas [ 15] FEBRUARY THIRD In to thir dirk and drumlie dayis, Whon sabill all the Hevin arrayis With mystie vapouris, cluddis and skyis, Nature all curage me denyis Of sangis, balattis, and of playis. Than Patience sayis ; Be nocht agast ; Hald Hoip and Treuth within thee fast ; And lat Fortoun wirk furth hir rage When that no rasoun may assuage, Whill that hir glass be run and past. WILLIAM DUNBAR Meditatioun in Wyntir FEBRUARY FOURTH Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE As Tou Liie It FEBRUARY FIFTH When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Lovers Labour'' 5 Lost [i6] "* ," ^ N ^ FEBRUARY SIXTH An' noo the winter winds complain ; Cauld lies the glaur in ilka lane ; On draigled hizzie, tautit wean An' drucken lads, In the mirk nicht, the winter rain Dribbles and blads. I mind me on yon bonny bield ; An' Fancy traivels far afield To gaither a' that gairdens yield O sun an' simmer ; To hearten up a dowie chield, Fancie's the limmer. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Underivoods FEBRUARY SEVENTH Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats. And pleased with what he gets. Come hither, come hither, come hither : Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE jis You hike It FEBRUARY EIGHTH Human ears take in but a few oftaves of the great gamut of the universe. MARGARET GETTY Parables from Nature [ '7] FEBRUARY NINTH Or, if a southern gale the region warm, And by degrees unbind the wintry charm. The traveller a miry country sees, And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees ; Like some deluded peasant Merlin leads Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads. While here enchanted gardens to him rise, And airy fabrics there attraft his eyes ; His wandering feet the magic paths pursue And, while he thinks the fair illusion true, The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air, And woods and wilds and thorny ways appear. AMBROSE PHILLIPS Ef title to tie Earl of Dorset FEBRUARY TENTH I can but trust that good shall fall At last — far off — at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. ALFRED TENNYSON In Memoriam FEBRUARY ELEVENTH Love wakes anew this throbbing heart. And we are never old. Over the winter glaciers I see the summer glow. And through the wild-piled snowdrift, The warm rosebuds below. RALPH WALDO EMERSON The fyorld-Soul [ '8 ] FEBRUARY TWELFTH Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; And when I am stretched beneath the pines. Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man. At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ; For what are they all, in their high conceit. When man in the bush with God may meet? RALPH WALDO EMERSON Good~lye FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH I suspeft we shall find some day that the loss of the human paradise consists chiefly in the closing of the human eyes ; that at least far more of it than people think, remains about us still, only we are so filled with foolish desires and evil cares that we cannot see or hear, cannot even smell or taste, the pleasant things around us. GEORGE MACDONALD Unspoken Sermons FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH How pleasing the world's prospeft lies : How tempting to go through! Parnassus to the poet's eyes, Nor Beauty with her sweet surprise, Can more inviting shew. COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA Life's Progress [ '9 ] FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen. Although thy breath be rude. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE As You Like It FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot : Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not. Heigh-ho ! sing, heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly : Then heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE As You Like It FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH Winter shows us Matter in its dead form, like the primary rocks, like granite and basalt — clear, but cold and frozen crystal. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Life of the Fields FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait. JEREMIAH r 1 Lamentations [ 2° ] FEBRUARY NINETEENTH To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature. If I cannot achieve it, at least I can think it. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Life of the Fields FEBRUARY TWENTIETH The stormes of wintry time will quickly pass. And one unbounded Spring encircle all. JAMES THOMSON Winter FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST The mightiest rivers are cradled in the leaves of the pine trees. CONFUCIUS AnaleBs FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. THE PSALMS The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky. And spangled heavens, a shining frame. Their great Original proclaim. JOSEPH ADDISON Paraphrases FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring ! SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE JVork ivithout Hope [ 21 ] FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH To make this earth our hermitage, A cheerful and a changeful page, God's bright and intricate device Of days and seasons doth suffice. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The House Beautiful FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH Fathers, inspire your children with the garden mania. They will be the better for it when grown up. Let other arts be only studied to heighten the beauty of the one I advocate. Engaged in planning how to shade a glen, or in contriving how to divert the course of a stream, one is too busy ever to be- come a dangerous citizen, an intriguing general, or a caballing courtier. PRINCE DE LIGNE Speeches FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH Pretty firstling of the year. Herald of the host of flowers, Hast thou left thy cavern drear. In the hope of summer hours ? Back unto the earthen bowers. Back to the warm world below. Till the strength of suns and showers Quell the now relentless snow. BARRY CORNWALL To the Snowdrop ["] FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH It were happy if we studied Nature more in natu- ral things ; and afled according to Nature whose rules are few, plain and most reasonable. Let us be- gin where she begins, go her pace, and close al- ways where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists. WILLIAM PENN FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH The earth is so bleak and deserted. So cold the north winds blow. That no bud or no blossom will venture To peep from below; But, longing for springtime, they nestle Deep under the snow. ADELAIDE PROCTER Christmas Flowers FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH Thirty dayes hath Nouember, Aprill, June and September, February hath xxviii alone, And all the rest have xxxi. RICHARD GRAFTON Chronicles of England [23 ] m MARCH MARCH MARCH FIRST MARCH, month of many weathers, wildly comes In hail and snow and rain and threatening hums And floods. DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN Praise of a Solitary Life MARCH SECOND The stormy March is come at last, With wind, and cloud, and changing skies : I hear the rushing of the blast. That through the snowy valley flies. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT March MARCH THIRD The year 's at the spring, And day's at the morn ; Morning 's at seven ; The hill-side 's dew-pearled ; The lark 's on the wing ; The snail 's on the thorn ; God 's in his heaven — All 's right with the world. ROBERT BROWNING Pippa Passes [^7 ] MARCH FOURTH When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave, At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring. But "hunts-up" to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing; And in the lower grove, as on the rising knoll. Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole. Those quiristers are percht, with many a speckled breast. Then from her burnished gate, the goodly glitter- ing east, Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morn- ing's sight ; On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats. Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes. That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air Seems all composed of sounds, about them every- where. MICHAEL DRAYTON Chorus of the Birds [28] < Cq MARCH FIFTH Take thy plastic spade, It is thy pencil : take thy seed, thy plants, They are thy colours. WILLIAM MASON The English Garden MARCH SIXTH Talke of perfeft happiness or pleasure, and what place so fit for that, as the garden place, wherin Adam was set to be the Herbarist ? Whither did the poets hunt for their sincere delights but into the gardens of Alcinous, of Adonis, and the orchards of Hesperides ? Where did they dreame that Heavene should be, but in the pleasant Garden of Elysium ? Whither doe all men walke for their honest recre- ation but thither, where the Earth hath most bene- ficially painted her face with flourishing colours ? JOHN GERARDE Preface to Herball MARCH SEVENTH The Cock is crowing, The stream is flowing. The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter. The green field sleeps in the sun ; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest ; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one ! WILLIAM WORDSWORTH r 2Q 1 I" March MARCH EIGHTH The north-east spends his rage, he now shut up Within his iron cave — the effusive south Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven Breathes the big cloudswith vernal showers distent. At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise. Scarce staining ether; but by fast degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep, Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom : Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed, Oppressing life ; but lovely, gentle, kind, And full of every hope and every joy, The wish of Nature. JAMES THOMSON Spring MARCH NINTH With a porch at my door, both for shelter and shade too. As the sunshine or rain may prevail ; And a small spot of ground for the use of my spade too. With a barn for the use of the flail ; A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game, And a purse when a friend wants to borrow ; I '11 envy no nabob his riches or fame. Nor what honours await him to-morrow. WILLIAM COLLINS To-morrow [30] MARCH TENTH Come — let us go to the land Where the violets grow. Let 's go thither hand in hand, Over the waters and over the snow, To the land where the sweet, sweet violets blow. There — in the beautiful south. Where the sweet flowers lie. Thou shalt sing, with thy sweeter mouth, Under the light of the evening sky, That Love never fades, though violets die. BARRY CORNWALL MARCH ELEVENTH The night was calm — still; it was in no haste to do anything — it had nothing it needed to do. To be is enough for the stars. RICHARD JEFFERIES Tl'/i€ Deivy Morn MARCH TWELFTH No matter what the almanac may say, The year begins with the first month of spring. When snowdrifts into rivulets slip away. And bluebirds of the coming violet sing. LUCY LARCOM [31 ] MARCH THIRTEENTH Whom fancy persuadeth, among other crops, To have for his spending sufficient of hops, Must willingly follow, of choices to choose, Such lessons approved as skilfal do use. The sun in the south, or else southly and west. Is joy to the hop, as a welcome guest. But wind in the north, or else northerly east, To the hop is as ill as a fay in a feast. Meet plot for the hop-yard once found is as told, Make thereof account, as of jewel of gold. Now dig it, and leave it, the sun for to burn, And afterwards fence it, to serve for that turn. THOMAS TUSSER Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry MARCH FOURTEENTH Only by walking hand in hand with Nature, only by a reverent and loving study of the mysteries for- ever around us, is it possible to disabuse the mind of the narrow view, the contracted belief that titne is now and eternity to-morrow. Eternity is to-day. RICHARD JEFFERIES Nature and Eternity MARCH FIFTEENTH Let me have wider feelings, more extended sym- pathies, let me feel with all living things, rejoice and praise with them. Let me have deeper know- ledge, a nearer insight, a more reverent conception. RICHARD JEFFERIES r 1 Nature and Eternity MARCH SIXTEENTH Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ne Winter's Tale MARCH SEVENTEENTH The harp at Nature's advent strung Has never ceased to play ; The song the stars of morning sung Has never died away. And prayer is made, and praise is given, By all things near and far. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Abraham Davenport MARCH EIGHTEENTH Thus all day long the full-distended clouds Indulge their genial stores, and well-showered earth Is deep enriched with vegetable life. JAMES THOMSON Spring MARCH NINETEENTH Where the wings of the sea-wind slacken, Green lawns to the landward thrive. Fields brighten and pine-woods blacken. And the heat in their heart is alive. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE In the Salt Marshes [33] MARCH TWENTIETH Let no man doubt the omnipotence of Nature. . . . Nature's laws are eternal ; her small, still voice, speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under terrible penalties, be disregarded. THOMAS CARLYLE MARCH TWENTY-FIRST As from drooping boughs of hemlock, Drips the melting snow in springtime. Making hollows in the snow-drifts. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Hiawatha MARCH TWENTY-SECOND Now that the winter 's gone, the Earth hath lost Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost Candies the grass, or calls an icy cream Upon the silver lake, or crystal stream ; But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth. And makes it tender ; gives a sacred birth To the dead swallow ; wakes in hollow tree The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee ; Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring In triumph to the world the youthful Spring. The valleys, hills and woods, in rich array. Welcome the coming of the longed-for May. Now all things smile. SIR JOHN SUCKLING Approach of Spring [34l MARCH TWENTY-THIRD But lately seen in gladsome green, The woods rejoiced the day. ROBERT BURNS ne Auld Man MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH Hark, the hours are softly calling. Bidding Spring arise, To listen to the rain-drops falling From the cloudy skies. To listen to Earth's weary voices, Louder every day, Bidding her no longer linger On her charmed way ; But hasten to her task of beauty Scarcely yet begun. ADELAIDE PROCTER Sfring MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH The smiling spring comes in rejoicing, And surly winter grimly flies : Now crystal clear are the falling waters. And bonie blue are the sunny skies. ROBERT BURNS Bonie Bell The Spring comes slowly up this way. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Christahel [35 ] MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH Winter's wrath begins to quell And pleasant spring appeareth : The grass now gins to be refresh'd, The swallow peeps out of her nest, And cloudy welkin cleareth. EDMUND SPENSER The Shepherd' s Calendar MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH Winters know Easily to shed the snow, And the untaught Spring is wise In cowslips and anemones. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Nature Beside a fading bank of snow, A lovely Anemone blew. Unfolding to the sun's bright glow Its leaves of heaven's serenest hue ; — "'Tis spring!" I cried; "pale winter's fled; The earliest wreath of flowers is blown ; The blossoms, withered long and dead, Will soon proclaim their tyrant flown." JAMES GATES PERCIVAL MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH If 't is not a true philosophy, That the spirit when set free Still lingers about its olden home. In the flower and the tree. It is very strange that our pulses thrill [36 ] At the sight of a voiceless thing, And our hearts yearn so with tenderness In the beautiful time of spring. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS MARCH TWENTY-NINTH The sun has hid its rays These many days Will dreary hours never leave the earth ? O doubting heart ! The stormy clouds on high Veil the same sunny sky, That soon (for spring is nigh) Shall wake the summer into golden mirth. ADELAIDE PROCTER A Doubting Heart MARCH THIRTIETH It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird. Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard, But in the darkest, meanest things, There alway, alway something sings. 'T is not in the high stars alone. Nor in the cups of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone. Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things, There alway, alway something sings. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Fragments on the Poet [ 37 ] MARCH THIRTY-FIRST Yes, spring is coming. Wood-pigeons, butterflies, and sweet flowers, all give token of the sweetest of the seasons. Spring is coming. The hazel stalks are swelling and putting forth their pale tassels, the satin palms with their honeyed odours are out on the willow, and the last lingering winter ber- ries are dropping from the hawthorn, and making way for the bright and blossomy leaves. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our Village [38 ] IV APRIL APRIL APRIL FIRST NOW if to be an April-fool Is to delight in the song of the thrush, To long for the swallow in air's blue hollow, And the nightingale's riotous music-gush. And to paint a vision of cities Elysian Out away in the sunset-flush — Then I grasp my flagon and swear thereby, We are April-fools, my Love and I. MORTIMER COLLINS APRIL SECOND Whan that Aprille with showres swoote The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathud every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertue engendred is the flour ; — Whan Zephirus eek, with his swete breeth Enspirud hath in every holte and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne, And smale fowles maken melodic. That slepen al the night with open yhe. So priketh hem nature in here corages: — Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages. And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes. GEOFFREY CHAUCER Prologue [ 41 ] APRIL THIRD A Garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER My Summer in a Garden APRIL FOURTH When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnet xcmii The uncertain glory of an April day, And by-and-by a cloud takes all ^way. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Two Gentlemen of Verona APRIL FIFTH Ay, every day the rain doth fall, And every day doth rise; 'T is thus the heavens incessant call. And thus the earth replies. JOHN B. TABB For the Rain it Raineth E-very Day APRIL SIXTH Prophecies stirring the wood, Presciences felt in the air, Then vague misgivings and chilling mood, When suddenly, everywhere. There's a mist of green on the trees. Soft skies over us, birds a-wing. SARAH J. DAY Mayflowers to Mistletoe [+0 -IB ^b^ .,^, *^^^ ^^HL v'^^ m 0'- . 1| *Ute ^. W 9||L -■■^m^jE H •^ Wi ^''^" ' . .: jj ""■ :» :. ■ ■ FRILLIUM GRANDIFLORUM White Wood Lily P. 42 APRIL SEVENTH The main charadleristic of these April odors is their uncloying freshness. They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they are penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors of May and June, of the world of meadows and orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so ineffable and im- material and so stimulating to the sense as the in- cense of April. JOHN BURROUGHS A Year in the Fields Sweet Spring, thou com'st with all thy goodly train, Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs j The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain. The clouds for very joy in pearls weep down their show'rs. Sweet Spring, thou com'st. DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDErf Oh, the Spring, the beautiful Spring, She shineth and smileth on everything ! BARRY CORNWALL APRIL EIGHTH When aince Aprile has fairly come. An birds may bigg in winter's lum. An pleisure's spreid for a' and some O whatna state. Love, wi' her auld recruitin' drum, Than taks the gate. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON r .^ "I Undenuoods APRIL NINTH Buttercups and Daisies, Oh the pretty flowers Coming ere the spring-time, To tell of sunny hours. While the trees are leafless, While the fields are bare. Buttercups and Daisies Spring up everywhere. MARY HOWITT T!lie Floiuers APRIL TENTH Sad wintry weather ; a northeast wind ; a sun that puts out one's eyes, without affording the slightest warmth ; dryness that chaps lips and hands like a frost in December; rain that comes chilly and arrowy like hail in January; nature at a dead pause ; no seeds up in the garden ; no leaves out in the hedgerows. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our Village APRIL ELEVENTH Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy spring, With sudden passion languishing. Teaching barren moors to smile. Painting pidtures mile on mile. Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths. Whence a smokeless incense breathes. RALPH WALDO EMERSON May Morning [44] APRIL TWELFTH Spring, with smiling verdure here, Warms the mild air, and crowns the youthful year ; The tube-rose ever breathes and violets blow. SIR SAMUEL GARTH APRIL THIRTEENTH Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May, Live and die and live for ever ; nought of all things far less fair Keep a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ^he Sunb(nvs APRIL FOURTEENTH Yet shall your ragged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn ; And when the wind from place to place Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase. Your garden gloom and gleam again. With leaping sun, with glancing rain. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON APRIL FIFTEENTH If the oak is out before the ash, 'T will be summer of wet and splash ; But if the ash is before the oak 'T will be a summer of fire and smoke. f 4.C 1 COUNTRY PROVERB APRIL SIXTEENTH Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant icing; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! The palm and may make country houses gay. Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day. And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay. Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! THOMAS NASH Spring APRIL SEVENTEENTH Fair pledges of a fruitful tree. Why do you fall so fast? Your date is not so past, But you may stay yet here awhile, To blush and gently smile, And go at last. ROBERT HERRICK To Blossoms APRIL EIGHTEENTH They break the spell of cold and darkness. The weary watch of sleepless pain ; And from my heart, as from the river, The ice of winter melts again. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER The First Floiaers [46] APRIL NINETEENTH That which, above All Others, yeelds the Sweet- est Smell in the Aire is the Violet : Specially the White-double-Violet, which comes twice a Yeare : About the middle of Aprill, and about Bartholo- mew-tide. Next to that is the Muske-Rose. FRANCIS BACON APRIL TWENTIETH And blissful blossoms in the blooming yard Submit their heads to the young Sun's safe-guard. GAWEN DOUGLAS When Flora 'gins to deck the fields With colours fresh and fine. OLD BALLAD OF Valentine and Ursine APRIL TWENTY-FIRST 'Tis good to be abroad in the sun. His gifts abide when day is done ; Each thing in nature from his cup Gathers a several virtue up. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Out of Doors APRIL TWENTY-SECOND The very aft of planting a seed in the earth has in it to me something beautiful. I always do it with a joy that is largely mixed awe. I watch my gar- den beds after they are sown, and think how one of God's exquisite miracles is going on beneath the dark earth out of sight. CELIA THAXTER r . _ "I lidy Island Garden APRIL TWENTY-THIRD Fair is each budding thing the Garden shows, From spring's frail Crocus to the latest bloom Of fading autumn. Every wind that blows Across that glowing traft sips rare perfume From all the tangled blossoms tossing there ; — Soft winds, they fain would linger long, nor any farther fare. JOHN RUSSELL HAYES T>4fi Old~Fashioned Garden APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH Lo where the rosy-bosomed Hours Fair Venus' train appear. Disclose the long-expedted flowers And wake the purple year. THOMAS CRAY Ode on the Spring APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH The forward violet thus did I chide : Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet? WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnet xcix APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH Daffydowndilly, the maid in the garden. The child at the wicket, is looking for you. Bare are the meadows, inbudded the thicket, .April still mingles the clouds with her blue; Come to us. Daffodil, golden and true. SARAH J. DAY Ma^Dwers to Mistletoe [48] APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver w^hite. And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadow^s with delight. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Lovers Labour 'j Lost APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH God does not send us strange flowers every year. When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places The same dear things lift up the same fair faces ; The violet is here. It all comes back ; the odor, grace and hue. Each sweet relation of its life repeated ; No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated ; It is the thing we knew. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY APRIL TWENTY-NINTH Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon ; As yet the early rising sun Has not attained his noon ; Stay, stay. Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And having prayed together, we Will go with you along ! ROBERT HERRICK [ 49 ] APRIL THIRTIETH But green leaves and blossoms, And sunny warm weather, And singing and loving All come back together. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE One bird reports unto another In the fall of silver showers. SAMUEL DANIEL Old English Song [50] V MAY MAY MAY FIRST FOR lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. THE SONG OF SOLOMON By May-day the scales have fallen from the eyes of every branch. JOHN BURROUGHS A Tear in tie Fields MAY SECOND And all the earth is gay ; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity. And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Intimations of Immortality MAY THIRD Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date ; [S3 ] Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd ; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course un- trimm'd. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnet xiiiii MAY FOURTH I feel a newer life in every gale. The winds that fan the flowers And with their welcome breathings fill the sail Tell of serener hours — Of hours that glide unfelt away Beneath the sky of May. JAMES GATES PERCIVAL The morning brightness showereth down from heaven, The morning freshness goeth up from earth. The morning gladness shineth everywhere Soon as the sun, in glorious panoply Parting the crimson curtains of his tent. Begins the day's proud march, the voice of song And flush of beauty live along his way. GRACE GREENWOOD the May Morning MAY FIFTH Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across : Violets were born ! [54] ROBERT BROWNING Afparitions As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, Trees did grow and plants did spring, Every thing did banish moan. RICHARD BARNFIELD The Nightingale MAY SIXTH When Flora with her fragrant flowers Bedeckt the earth so trim and gaye, And Neptune with his daintye showers Came to present the monthe of Maye. THOMAS PERCY Reliques MAY SEVENTH Though not often consciously recognized, perhaps this is the great pleasure of summer, to watch the earth, the dead particles, revolving themselves into the living case of life, to see the seed-leaf push aside the clod and become by degrees the per- fumed flower. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Pageant of Summer MAY EIGHTH When May is in his prime and youthful spring Doth clothe the tree with leaves and ground with flowers, And time of year reviveth everything. And lovely Nature smiles and nothing lowers. r -, THOMAS WATSON [ 55 ] MAY NINTH Saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks ; In puns of tulips, and in phrases Charming for their truth, of daisies Uttering as well as silence may The sweetest words the sweetest way. LEIGH HUNT home Letters made of Flowers MAY TENTH Get up, get up, for shame, the blooming morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh quilted colours through the air ; Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see The dew-bespangled herb and tree. Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east, Above an hour since, yet you are not dressed, Nay, not so much as out of bed ; When all the birds have matins said, And sung their thankful hymns. ROBERT HERRICK 7o Corinnay to go a-Maying MAY ELEVENTH O lusty May with Flora queue The balmy dropis from Phebus schene Preluciand beams befoir the day Be that Diana growis grene, Throwch glaidnes of this lusty May. • >••••• [56 ] Of everie moneth in the yeir, To mirthful May there is no peir, Hir glistrine garments are so gay ; You lovaris all mak merie cheir, Throwch glaidnes of this lusty May. OLD BALLAD MAY TWELFTH Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obliged to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER ^y Summer in a Garden Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, When our mother Nature laughs around ; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground ? WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ^he Gladness of Nature MAY THIRTEENTH Oh, the merry day has pleasant hours, And dreamily they glide, As if they floated like the leaves Upon a silver tide. The trees are full of crimson buds, And the woods are full of birds. And the waters flow to music, Like a tune with pleasant words. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS [57] MAY FOURTEENTH Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ; Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly j Labor. All labor is noble and holy. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD Labor Who first invented Work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down To the ever-haunting opportunity Of business in the green fields, and the town- To plough, loom, anvil, spade. CHARLES LAMB Work MAY FIFTEENTH Now the lucid tears of May Gem the blossoms of the spray ; Every leaf and bending flower Glitters in the vernal shower. FELICIA HEMANS MAY SIXTEENTH Children of the sun's first glancing. Flowers that deck the bounteous earth ; Joy and mirth are round ye dancing. Nature smiled upon your birth ; Light hath veined your petals tender. And with hues of matchless splendor Flora paints each dewy bell. FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER The Flowers [58] MAY SEVENTEENTH Mark our ways, how noiseless All and sweetly voiceless, Though the March-winds pipe, to make our passage clear. Not a whisper tells Where our small seed dwells. Nor is known the moment green when our tips ap- pear. We thread the earth in silence, In silence build our bowers, — And leaf by leaf in silence show, till we laugh a-top, sweet flowers. LEIGH HUNT Songs of Fhivers iAY EIGHTEENTH Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden. Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Floiuers MAY NINETEENTH What delight, in some sweet spot Combining love with garden plot, At once to cultivate one's flowers And one's epistolary powers ! LEIGH HUNT Love Letters made of Floiuers [59] The horse-chestnut in the earlier weeks of May is a sight for gods and men. PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON Essays MAY TWENTIETH You have heard it said that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be true ; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them. JOHN RUSKIN Sesame and Lilies MAY TWENTY-FIRST The Daisy scattered on each mead and downe, A golden tuft within a silver crown ; Raire fell that dainty flower. And may there be No shepherd graced that doth not honor thee. WILLIAM BROWNE Britannia's Pastorals MAY TWENTY-SECOND Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ! Woods and groves are of thy dressing ; Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song. And welcome thee, and wish thee long. JOHN MILTON [ 60 ] Song on May Morning MAY TWENTY-THIRD Sumer is i-cumen in; Lhude sing cuccu ; Groweth sed and bloweth mede, And springeth the wde nu ; Sing cuccu, cuccu ! EARLY ENGLISH SONG MAY TWENTY-FOURTH How like a prodigal doth Nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart. Since each reflefts in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some v^ondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God's book. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Tip the Dandelion MAY TWENTY-FIFTH The buttercups with shining face Smile brightly as I pass, They seem to lighten all the place Like sunshine in the grass. And though not glad nor gay was I When first they came in view, I find when I have passed them by That I am smiling too. SARAH J. DAY Mayjlo-uiers to Mistletoe [6i ] MAY TWENTY-SIXTH Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Out-owre the grassy lea. ROBERT BURNS Lament of Mary,Siueen of Scots MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH Love's language may be talked with these : To work out choicest sentences, No blossoms can be meeter ; And, such being used in Eastern bowers. Young maids may wonder if the flowers Or meanings be the sweeter. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING ji Floiuer in a Letter MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH It is the season now to go About the country high and low, Among the lilacs hand in hand, And two by two in fairy-land. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Underivoods MAY TWENTY-NINTH The soote season that bud and bloom forth brings. With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale ; The nightingale with feathers new she sings ; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs. HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY [6zJ MAY THIRTIETH And faith, that a thousand ills can brave, Speaks in thy blue leaves, "Forget-me-not." JAMES GATES PERCIVAL And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes : With every thing that pretty is, My lady sw^eet, arise : Arise, arise. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Cymbeline MAY THIRTY-FIRST Who shall say that flowers Dress not Heav'n's own bowers ? Who its love, without them, can fancy, — or sweet floor ? Who shall even dare To say we sprang not there. And came not down that Love might bring one piece of Heav'n the more ? Oh, pray believe that angels From those blue dominions Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their golden pinions. LEIGH HUNT Songs of the Floivcrs [63 ] VI JUNE JUNE JUNE FIRST OTHE enchanted world ! O youth, O June ! No wonder that the heart cannot forget Those morning melodies, that first-learned tune ! Through deepening harmonies they haunt her yet. LUCY LARCOM And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfeft days ; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune. And over it softly her warm ear lays. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ^he Viuon of Sir Launfal JUNE SECOND Strong June, superb, serene, elate. With conscience of thy sovereign state, Untouched of thunder, though the storm Scathe here and there thy shuddering skies. And bid its lightning cross thine eyes With fire, thy golden hours inform Earth and the souls of men with life That brings forth peace from shining strife. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ji Tear^s Carols [67 ] JUNE THIRD 'T is Heaven alone that is given aw^ay, 'T is only God may be had for the asking ; No price is set on the lavish summer ; June may be had by the poorest comer. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 7he Vision of Sir haunfal JUNE FOURTH Tell me whither, maiden June, Dow^n the dusky slope of noon With thy sickle of a moon, Goest thou to reap ? Fields of Fancy by the stream Of night in silvery silence gleam. To heap w^ith many a harvest-dream The granary of sleep. JOHN B. TABB JUNE FIFTH To raise Flow^ers is a Common Thing, God alone gives them Fragrance. ORIENTAL PROVERB And because the Breath of Flowers is far sweeter in the Aire (when it comes and goes like the war- bling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the Flowers and Plants that doe best perfume the Aire. FRANCIS BACON Essay on Gardens [68 ] 3 I JUNE SIXTH O, now 's the hour, when air is sweet, And birds are all in tune. To seek with me the cool retreat In bright and merry June ; When every rose-bush has a nest. And every thorn a flower, And everything on earth is blest This sweet and holy hour. And we will wander far away Along the flowery vale. Where winds the brook its sparkling play, And freshly blows the gale. JAMES GATES PERCIVAL JUNE SEVENTH But sweeter far in this old Garden close To loiter 'mid the lovely, old-time flowers. To breathe the scent of Lavender and Rose, And with old poets pass the peaceful hours. Old Gardens and old poets, — happy he Whose quiet summer days are spent in such sweet company! JOHN RUSSELL HAYES The Old-Fashioned Garden JUNE EIGHTH Not only the days, but life itself lengthens in sum- mer. I would spread abroad my arms and gather more of it to me, could I do so. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Pageant of Summer [69 ] JUNE NINTH How well the skilful gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new. Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run ; And, as it works, th' industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers? ANDREW MARVELL The Gardener JUNE TENTH Bring hether the pincke and purple Cullembine With Gellifloures, Bring hether Coronations and Sops-in-wine, Worne of Paramours. Strow me the ground with Daffadowndillies And Cowslips and Kingcups and loved Lilies : The pretty Pawnee, The Chevisaunce, Shall match with the fayre Flour Delice. EDMUND SPENSER The Shepherd's Calendar JUNE ELEVENTH Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight : With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white. And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings. JOHN KEATS / stood Tip-toe [70] JUNE TWELFTH The roses red arrayed in rorne and ryss, The primrose and the purpure viola ; To hear it was a point of paradise, Such mirth the mavis and the merle couth ma, The blossoms blithe broke up on bank and brae, The smell of herbis, and of fowls the cry, Contending who should have the viftory. WILLIAM DUNBAR And here on Sabbath mornings The goodman comes to get His Sunday nosegay, — Moss Rose-bud, White Pink, and Mignonette. MARY HOWITT 'The Poor Man's Garden JUNE THIRTEENTH A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was. Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky ; There eke the soft delights that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast. And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh ; But whate'er smack'd of 'noyance or unrest Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest. JAMES THOMSON Castle of Indolence [71 ] JUNE FOURTEENTH Now each creature joyes the other, Passing happy dayes and howers ; One bird reports unto another In the fall of silver showers, Whilst the earth (our common mother) Hath her bosom deckt with flowers. JOSHUA SYLVESTER JUNE FIFTEENTH 'T was one of the charmed days When the genius of God doth flow, The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow : It may blow north, it still is warm ; Or south, it still is clear ; Or east, it smells like a clover farm; Or west, no thunder fear. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Woodnotes What a glowing glorious day ! Summer in its richest prime, noon in its most sparkling bright- ness, little white clouds dappling the deep blue sky, and the sun, now partially veiled, and now bursting through them with an intensity of light. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our tillage [7^ ] JUNE SIXTEENTH Summer shows us Matter changing into life, sap rising from the earth through a million tubes, the alchemic power of light entering the solid oak ; and see ! it bursts forth in countless leaves. Living things leap in the grass, living things drift upon the air, living things are coming forth to breathe in every hawthorn bush. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Pageant of Summer JUNE SEVENTEENTH Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it : they measure their suc- cess in life by their ability to buy it. It is alike the passion of the parvenu and the pride of the aristo- crat. No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface it is four thou- sand miles deep ; and that is a very handsome pro- perty. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER My Summer in a Garden JUNE EIGHTEENTH The joyous time when pleasures pour Profusely round, and in their shower Hearts open like the season's Rose, The Floweret of a hundred leaves, Expanding while the dew-fall flows, And every leaf its balm receives THOMAS MOORE Lalla Rooki [73] JUNE NINETEENTH A bush of May flowers with the bees about them ; Ah, sure no bashful nook could be without them ; And let a lush Laburnum oversweep them, And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them Moist, cool and green ; and shade the Violets, That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. A filbert hedge with Wild-brier over twin'd, And clumps of Woodbine taking the soft wind. Upon their summer thrones. JOHN KEATS / stood Tif-toe JUNE TWENTIETH In all those walks through garden, wood and field. Wherein my much delight is, I have found The flowers my choicest comrades. SARAH J. DAY Mayjlo'wsrs to Mistletoe JUNE TWENTY-FIRST The sound of summer is every where — in the pass- ing breeze, in the hedge, in the broad-branching trees, in the grass as it swings — all the varied myriad particles that together make the summer varied are in motion. The sap moves in the trees, the pollen is pushed out from grass and flower, and yet again these acres and acres of leaves and square miles of grass blades — for they would cover acres and square miles if reckoned edge to edge — are drawing their strength from the atmosphere. RICHARD JEFFERIES ^he Pageant of Summer [ 74 ] JUNE TWENTY-SECOND In the midst of June, that jolly sweet season, When that fair Phoebus with his beamis bright Had dryed up the dew from dale and down, And all the land made with his lemis light. Sweet was the smell of flowers white and red. The noise of birdis right delicious ; The boughis broad bloomid above my head, The ground growing with grasses gracious ; Of all pleasaunce that place was plenteous. With sweet odors and birdis harmony That morning mild, my mirth was more for they. WILLIAM DUNBAR The Thistle and the Rose JUNE TWENTY-THIRD Now is the high-tide of the year. And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer. Into every bare inlet and creek and bay. We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear. That dandelions are blossoming near. That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL The Vision of Sir Launfal [ 75 ] JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH God might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small, The oak tree and the cedar tree, Without a flower at all. We might have had enough, enough For every wrant of ours. For luxury, medicine and toil, And yet have had no flowers. MARY HOWITT The Use of Flowers JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH And sharpen was this arbour, roof and all, As in a pretty parlour ; and also That hedge as thick was as a castle wall. That whoso list without to stand or go. Though he would all day pryen to and fro, He should not see if there were any wight Within or no ; but one within well might Perceive all those that wente there without Into the field, that was on every side Cover'd with corn and grass. GEOFFREY CHAUCER T/te Canterbury Tales JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers ; And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray. [ 76 ] ALFRED TENNYSON JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH Open afresh your round of starry folds, Ye ardent marigolds ! Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, For great Apollo bids That in these days your praises should be sung On many harps, which he has lately strung. JOHN KEATS / stood Tip-toe JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH A stately row of maidens tall Within my garden stood ; And bowed their snowy foreheads all In gentle sisterhood. And often as I loitered near, In joy of their pure grace, Strains of a chant I seemed to hear That breathed about the place. SARAH J. DAY Garden Lilies JUNE TWENTY-NINTH What tho', like commoners of air. We wander out, we know not where, But either house or hal' ? Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods. The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, Are free alike to all. ROBERT BURNS Epistle to Da'vie [77] JUNE THIRTIETH Even now methinks Each little cottage of my native vale Swells out its earthen sides, upheaves its roof, Like to a hillock moved by clambouring mole. And with green trail-weeds clamb'ring up its walls, Roses and every gay and fragrant plant. Before my fancy stands, a fairy bower, Ay, and within it too do fairies dwell. JOANNA BAILLIE PtSiure of a Country Life [78 ] VII JULY JULY JULY FIRST HAIL, proud July, whose fervent mouth Bids even be morn and north be south By grace and gospel of thy word. Whence all the splendour of the sea Lies breathless with delight in thee. And marvel at the music heard From the ardent silent lips of noon And midnight's rapturous plenilune. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A Year^i Carols JULY SECOND Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown ; Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. ALFRED TENNYSON Maud One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man. Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ne Tables Turned [81 ] JULY THIRD Sweet is the Rose, but growes upon a brere ; Sweet is the Juniper, but sharpe his bough ; Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere; Sweet is the Firbloom, but his branches rough ; Sweet is the Cypress, but his rind is tough, Sweet is the Nut, but bitter is his pill ; Sweet is the Broome-flowere, but yet sowre enough; And sweet is Moly, but his roote is ill. So every sweet with sowre is temper'd still, That maketh it be coveted the more : For easie things, that may be got at will. Most sorts of men doe set but little store. EDMUND SPENSER Sonnet xxvi JULY FOURTH We tend the flowers of every hue But love the red, the white, the blue — Red, white and blue ; The red is Love's sweet blushing hue, And white is fair as Faith to view And Truth is imaged in the blue — Red, white and blue; Where Faith is free, and Love is true. We sow the red, and white, and blue. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE Song of the Flower AngeU [8a j D Cq JULY FIFTH Beside the walk the drowsy Poppies sway, More deep of hue than is the reddest Rose, And dreamy-warm as summer's midmost day; Proud, languorous queens of slumberous repose. Within their little chalices they keep The mystic witchery that brings mild, purple- lidded sleep. JOHN RUSSELL HAYES T/5e Old-FaMoned Garden JULY SIXTH The Larkspur lifts on high its azure spires, And up the arbor's lattices are rolled The quaint Nasturtium's many-colored fires. JOHN RUSSELL HAYES the Old-FaMoned Garden JULY SEVENTH Give me blue flowers To grace my bowers, The perfeft color — heaven's own blue, Sweet violet in emerald set, And glistening with the fragrant dew; Or by the brook With downcast look The modest harebell's fairy form. CAROLINE EUSTIS JULY EIGHTH Nothing 's small . . . Earth 's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING [83] The more we see into Nature and try to repre- sent it, the more ignorant and helpless we find ourselves ; until sometimes I wonder whether God might not have made the world so rich and full just to teach his children humility. GEORGE MACDONALD JULY NINTH My grounds should not be large ; I like to go To Nature for a range and prospeft too, I cannot fancy she '11 comprise for me Even in a park her all-sufficiency. But all the ground I had should keep a look Of Nature still; have bird's nests and a brook; One spot for flowers, the rest all turf and trees. LEIGH HUNT Thoughts on Reading Pomfrefs Choice JULY TENTH 'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book. Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook. HORACE SMITH [8+] JULY ELEVENTH The Garden glows And 'gainst its walls the city's heart still beats. And out from it each summer wind that blows Carries some sweetness to the tired streets. MARGARET DELAND Old Garden JULY TWELFTH For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont'st to look, Thy crystal eyes gaze in a crystal brook. At court, a flower or two did deck thy head. Now, with whole garlands it is circled ; For what in wealth we want, we have in flowers, And what we lose in halls, we find in bowers. ANTHONY MUNDAY JULY THIRTEENTH For this the fruit, for this the seed, For this the parent tree, The least to man, the most to God, — A fragrant mystery. Where Love, with Beauty glorified, Forgets Utility. JOHN B. TABB Blossom JULY FOURTEENTH There is a spell in every flower, A sweetness in each spray. And every simple bird has power To please me with its lay. ANNA PEYRE DINNIES The Floral Year [85 ] JULY FIFTEENTH We are the sweet flowers, Born of sunny showers, Think whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith ; Utterance "mute and bright. Of some unknown delight, We fill the air with pleasure by our simple breath ; All who see us love us, — We befit all places ; Unto sorrow we give smiles ; and unto graces, graces. LEIGH HUNT Songs of the Flowers JULY SIXTEENTH Then, wherefore, wherefore were they made, All dyed with rainbow light. All fashioned with supremest grace, Upspringing day and night ? Our outward life requires them not. Then wherefore had they birth ? — To minister delight to man, To beautify the earth. MARY HOWITT The Use of Flowers JULY SEVENTEENTH Lemon leaves, whose sweetness Grows sweeter than before When bruised, and crushed, and broken, Hearts need that lesson more. ADELAIDE PROCTER A Chaplet of Flowers [86] JULY EIGHTEENTH I cannot tell what you say, green leaves, I cannot tell what you say, But I know that there is a spirit in you, And a word in you this day. CHARLES KINGSLEY JULY NINETEENTH The boundless extent of creation is so large that it can look at a world, or a galaxy of worlds, in the same way as we compare a flower or insedt to the world around us. IMMANUEL KANT JULY TWENTIETH O Nature, how in every charm supreme Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new ! O, for the voice and fire of seraphim. To sing thy glories with devotion due ! JAMES BEATTIE JULY TWENTY-FIRST Not to myself alone. The little opening flower transported cries; Not to myself alone I bud and bloom ; With fragrant breath the breezes I perfume, And gladden all things with my rainbow dyes. The bee comes sipping, every eventide, His dainty fill; The butterfly within my cup doth hide From threatening ill. ANONYMOUS [87 ] JULY TWENTY-SECOND There is a tongue in every leaf — A voice in every rill ; A voice that speaketh everywhere — In flood and fire, through earth and air, A tongue that is never still. ANONYMOUS JULY TWENTY-THIRD So thick the boughis and the leavis green Beshaded all the alleys that there were. And midst of every arbour might be seen The sharpe greene sweete juniper, Growing so fair with branches here and there, That as it seemed to a lyf without, The boughis spread the arbour all about. And on the smalle greene twistis sat The little sweete nightingale, and sung So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrat Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among. That all the gardens and the wallis rung Right of their song. KING JAMES I JULY TWENTY-FOURTH I never wander 'mong the flowers, But mem'ry will be straying To other days and other hours, When childhood went a-Maying. [88 ] O precious days, O happy hours, How mem'ry backward lingers, To pluck again the dewy flowers, With childhood's rosy fingers ! ANONYMOUS JULY TWENTY-FIFTH God made the flowers to beautify The earth, and cheer man's careful mood ; And he is happiest who hath power To gather wisdom from a flower, And wake his heart in every hour To pleasant gratitude. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH JULY TWENTY-SIXTH Doth the bright sun from the high arch of heaven, In all his beauteous robes of fleckered clouds. And ruddy vapours, and deep-glowing flames. And softly varied shades, look glorious ? Do the green woods dance to the wind ? The lakes Cast up their sparkling waters to the light? Do the sweet hamlets in their bushy dells Send winding up to heaven their curling smoke On the soft morning air ? Do the flocks bleat, and the wild creatures bound In antic happiness? and mazy birds Wing the mid air in lightly skimming bands? Ay, all this is — men do behold all this — The poorest man. JOANNA BAILLIE De Monfort [89] JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere : By the dusty roadside, On the sunny hillside, Close by the noisy brook. In every shady nook I come creeping, creeping everywhere. ANONYMOUS 'Tke Voice of the Grass JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH Good herbes in the garden for agues that burn, That over-strong heat to good temper turn. THOMAS TUSSER Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry There the turf Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense With luxury of unexpedled sweets. WILLIAM COWPER The Task JULY TWENTY-NINTH Thyme takes upon itself to embellish the parts of the earth which other plants disdain. If there is an arid, stony, dry soil, burnt up by the sun, it is there Thyme spreads its charming green beds, perfumed, close, thick, elastic, scattered over with little balls of blossom, pink in color, and of delightful fresh- ness. ALPHONSE KARR A Tour of My Garden [90] JULY THIRTIETH A chaplet then of Herbs I '11 make Than which though yours be braver, Yet this of mine I '11 undertake Shall not be short in savour. With Basil then I wrill begin, Whose scent is wondrous pleasing. This Eglantine I '11 next put in. The sense with sweetness seizing. Then in my Lavender I lay, Muscado put among it. With here and there a leaf of Bay, Which still shall run along it. MICHAEL DRAYTON The Muse^s Elysium JULY THIRTY-FIRST There often exhales from certain flowers some- thing more and even better than perfume — I mean certain circumstances of life with which they are associated and with which they inseparably dwell in the mind, or rather in the heart, even as the hamadryads were not able to quit their oaks ! ALPHONSE KARR A Tour of My Garden [91 ] VIII AUGUST AUGUST AUGUST FIRST ALL the long August afternoon, ^ The little drowsy stream Whispers a melancholy tune, As if it dreamed of June And whispered in its dream. The thistles show beyond the brook Dust on their down and bloom, And out of many a weed-grown nook The aster-flowers look With eyes of tender gloom. WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS August AUGUST SECOND Soon will the high midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell. And stocks in fragrant blow ; Roses that down the alleys shine afar. And open, jasmine-muffled lattices. And groups under the dreaming garden-trees. And the full moon, and the white evening-star. MATTHEW ARNOLD Thyrsis [95 ] AUGUST THIRD Hail, brother August, flushed and warm, And scatheless from my storm, Your hands are full of corn I see. As full as hands can be : And earth and air both smell as sweet as balm In their recovered calm. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI The Months So, too, the summer days ; the sun rises on the same grasses and green hedges, there is the same blue sky, but did we ever have enough of them ? No, not in a hundred years ! RICHARD JEFFERIES T^he Pageant of Summer AUGUST FOURTH My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory. Hence it is that a flower is to me so much more than stalk and petals. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Pageant of Summer AUGUST FIFTH What is more gentle than a wind in summer? What is more soothing than the pretty hummer That stays one moment in an open flower. And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower? JOHN KEATS Sleep and Poetry [96] CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE l^ady^s Slipper P. 96 AUGUST SIXTH Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope. Con- sider the grasses and the oaks, the swallows, the sweet blue butterfly — they are one and all a sign and token showing before our eyes earth made into life. So that my hope becomes as broad as the hori- zon afar, reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, refledled in the gleam of every flower. RICHARD JEFFERIES The Pageant of Summer AUGUST SEVENTH I like to go into the garden these warm latter days, and muse. To muse is to sit in the sun and not think of anything. I am not sure but goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER My Summer in a Garden AUGUST EIGHTH And all without were walkes and alleys dight With divers trees enranged in even ranks ; And here and there were pleasant arbors pight And shady seats, and sundry flowerying bankes To sit and rest the walker's wearie shankes, EDMUND SPENSER Faery Slueen [97 ] AUGUST NINTH My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound ; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound. RALPH WALDO EMERSON My Garden AUGUST TENTH s If trees are Nature's thoughts or dreams, ( And witness how her great heart yearns, 1 Then she has only shown, it seems, Y Her lightest fantasies in ferns. EDGAR FAWCETT Fantasy and Passion 'T is a rare world, a brave world, A ranting, flanting, shining world ! COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA AUGUST ELEVENTH Is not a garden a living jewel-case full of jewels which fly, and others which blossom and spread abroad their perfume? Do you know a sapphire of so pure a blue as the corn-bottle of the fields, as brilliant as the sage called Salvia patius, as the Delphinium vivace, which flourish in our gardens? ALPHONSE KARR A Tour of My Garden [98 ] AUGUST TWELFTH I wonder to myself how they can all get on with- out me ; how they manage, bird and flower, with- out me, to keep the calendar for them. For I noted it so carefully and lovingly day by day. RICHARD JEFFERIES T^ Pageant of Summer I see the garden thicket's shade Where all the summer long we played. And gardens set and houses made, Our early work and late. MARY HOWITT AUGUST THIRTEENTH Solar inseft on the wing In the garden murmuring, Soothing with thy summer horn Swains by winter pinched and worn. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Nature AUGUST FOURTEENTH Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep. And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see Pale blue Convolvulus in tendrils creep, And air-swept lindens yield Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers Of bloom. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH Sonnets [99 ] AUGUST FIFTEENTH The stately Lady Hollyhock Has graced my garden-bed for years, Sedately stiffened in a frock All frills and ruffles to her ears ; For at the fashions one may mock When one is born a hollyhock. Her gay companions creep and twine And riot in the summer breeze ; But she doth haughtily decline To join in common sports like these ; Such indecorum needs must shock A well-bred, well-starched hollyhock. SARAH J. DAY Mayjloivers to Mistletoe AUGUST SIXTEENTH Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of Na- ture, with which she indicates how much she loves us. JOHANN W. VON GOETHE Mine is just a little old-fashioned garden where the flowers come together to praise the Lord and teach all who look upon them to do likewise. CELIA THAXTER An Island Garden AUGUST SEVENTEENTH The green earth sends her incense up From many a mountain shrine ; From folded leaf and dewy cup She pours her sacred wine. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER r lOO 1 ■^'** Worship of Nature AUGUST EIGHTEENTH Pleasant it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene. Where, the long drooping boughs between. Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go. And all the broad leaves over me Clapped their little hands in glee. With one continuous sound. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Prelude : Voices of the Night AUGUST NINETEENTH Great Helianthus climbs the upland lawn, And bows in homage to the rising dawn ; Imbibes with eagle eye the golden ray. And watches, as it moves, the orb of day. ERASMUS DARWIN ^he Botanic Garden AUGUST TWENTIETH How welcome would it often be to many a child of anxiety and toil to be suddenly transferred from the heat and din of the city, the restlessness and worry of the mart, to the midnight garden or the mountain-top ! JAMES MARTINEAU [ lOI ] AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST Had I a garden, it should lie All smiling to the sun ; And after bird and butterfly. Children should romp and run ; Filling their little laps with flowers, The air with shout and song, While golden crests in guelder bowers Ripple the whole day long. ALFRED AUSTIN T^he Garden that I Love AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND Your voiceless lips, O flowers ! are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers In loneliest nook. HORACE SMITH Hymn to the Floivers AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD All my hurts My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild rose or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Mmketaquid AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH There 's no dew left on the daisies and clover ; There's no rain left in heaven ; I've said my seven times over and over, — Seven times one are seven. JEAN INGELOW [ 102 ] AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH When Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, Amid the broom he basked him on the ground, Where the wild thyme and camomile are found ; There would he linger, till the latest ray Of light sat trembling on the welkin's bound. JAMES THOMSON The Castle of Indolence AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH Trees and flowers and streams Are social and benevolent ; and he Who oft communeth in their language pure, Roaming among them at the close of day. Shall find, like him who Eden's garden dressed. His Maker there, to teach his listening heart. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand And share its dew-drop with another near. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AUGUST TWENTY-SEVENTH I had found out a sweet green spot, Where a lily was blooming fair ; The din of the city disturbed it not, But the spirit that shades the quiet cot With its wings of love was there. JAMES GATES PERCIVAL ^he Coral Gro've [ i°3 ] AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH Ye bright mosaics ! that with storied beauty The floors of Nature's temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instruftive duty Your forms create ! 'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields and ever ringeth A call to prayer. HORACE SMITH Hymn to the Flotvers AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH When the golden day is done, Through the closing portal, Child and garden, flower and sun, Vanish all things mortal. As the blinding shadows fall. As the rays diminish. Under the evening's cloak, they all Roll away and vanish. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Night and Day AUGUST THIRTIETH Through all the pleasant meadow-side The grass grew shoulder-high. Till the shining scythes went far and wide And cut it down to dry. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The Hayloft [ 104 ] AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on. . . . Whate'er the wintry frost Nitrous prepared — the various-blossomed Spring Put in white promise forth — and Summer suns Concodted strong — rush boundless now to view. JAMES THOMSON l^he Seasons [ '05 ] IX SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER FIRST TRANCED in a liquid calm September lies, Her bosom heaves with breathing soft and low; The palpitating air in heart-warm stillness dies, And brooding peace is over all below. ELAINE GOODALE September SEPTEMBER SECOND September, all glorious with gold, as a king In the radiance of triumph attired, Outlightening the summer, outsweetening the spring, Broods wide on the woodlands with limitless wing, A presence of all men desired. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE The Palace of Pan SEPTEMBER THIRD The garden within was shaded. And guarded about from sight ; The fragrance flowed to the south wind. The fountain leaped to the light. HELEN GRAY CONE Thisbe [ 109 ] SEPTEMBER FOURTH Hail, kind September, friend whose grace Renews the bland year's bounteous face With largess given of corn and wine. Through many a land that laughs with love Of thee and all the heaven above ; More fruitful found than all save thine, Whose skies fulfil with strenuous cheer The fervent fields that knew thee near. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A Tear^s Carols SEPTEMBER FIFTH The time so tranquil is and clear, That nowhere shall ye find. Save on a high and barren hill, An air of passing wind. All trees and simples, great and small, That balmy leaf do bear ; Than they were painted on a wall, No more they move or steir. The rivers fresh, the caller streams O'er rocks can swiftly rin. The water clear like crystal beams, And makes a pleasant din. ALEXANDER HUME [ iio ] SOLIDAGO Goldenrod SEPTEMBER SIXTH Nothing stirs the sunny silence, Save the drowsy humming of the bees Round the ripe rich peaches on the wall, And the south wind sighing in the trees, And the dead leaves rustling as they fall. ADELAIDE PROCTER A Remembrance of Autumn SEPTEMBER SEVENTH Till at the last, among the bowes glade, Of adventure, I caught a pleasant shade ; Full smooth and plain, and lusty for to seen, And soft as velvet was the yonge green ; Where from my horse I did alight as fast And on the bow aloft his reine cast. So faint and mate of weariness I was. That I me laid adown upon the grass, Upon a brinke, shortly for to tell. Beside the river of a crystal well. And the water, as I reherse can. Like quicke silver in his streams y-ran. Of which the gravel and the brighte stone. As any gold, against the sun y-shone. JOHN LYDGATE SEPTEMBER EIGHTH There the most dainty paradise on ground Itself doth offer to his sober eye. In which all pleasures plenteously abound. And none does others' happiness envy; The painted flowers, the trees upshooting high, [ "' ] The dales for shade, the hills for breathing space, The trembling groves, the crystal runniiig by ; And that which all fair works doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place. One would have thought — so cunningly the rude And scorned parts were mingled with the fine — That nature had for wantonness ensued Art, and that art at nature did repine ; So striving each th' other to undermine. Each did the other's work more beautify ; So differing both in wills, agreed in fine; So all agreed through sweet diversity. This garden to adorn with all variety. EDMUND SPENSER The Faery Sjueen SEPTEMBER NINTH Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade. ANDREW MARVELL Thoughts in a Garden See, here's a bower Of eglantine with honeysuckles woven. Where not a spark of prying light creeps in. So closely do the sweets enfold each other. 'T is twilight's home. THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES [ "O SEPTEMBER TENTH In bower and garden rich and rare There's many a cherished flower, Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits Within the flitting hour. Not so the simple forest leaf, Unprized, unnoticed lying, — The same through all its little life — It changes but in dying. Be such, and only such, my friends ; Once mine, and mine forever. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE Flowers seek the light their beauties to display ; The leaf will smile the same by night as day. ANONYMOUS SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH Oh, good, gigantic smile o' the brown old earth This autumn morning ! ROBERT BROWNING Among the Rocks It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH A Calm Evening [ "3] SEPTEMBER TWELFTH The subtle power in perfume found, Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned; On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound No censer idly burned. And Nature holds in wood and field Her thousand sunlit censers still ; To spells of flower and shrub we yield Against or with our will. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER S'weet-Fern SEPTEMBER THIRTEENTH And may my humble dwelling stand Upon some chosen spot of land^ A pond before full to the brim, Where cows may cool and geese may swim. Behind, a green, like velvet neat, Soft to the eye, and to the feet, Where odorous plants in evening fair Breathe all around ambrosial air. MATTHEW GREEN Contentment SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp. Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late. Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Days SEPTEMBER FIFTEENTH I love the garden wild and wide, Where oaks have plum-trees by their side ; Where woodbines arid the twisting vine Clip round the pear-tree and the pine, Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow, And roses midst rank clover blow Upon a bank of a clear strand. In wimplings led by nature's hand ; Though docks and brambles here and there May sometimes cheat the gardener's care, Yet this to me's a paradise Compared with prim cut plots and nice Where nature has to art resigned, Till all looks mean, stifiF and confined. ALLAN RAMSAY SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH Because you cannot pluck the flower. You pass the sweet scent by ; Because you cannot have the stars, You will not see the sky. ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past — there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky. Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Hymn to InteUeliual Beauty [ "5 ] SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH Had I a garden, alleys green Should lead where none would guess, Save lovers to exchange unseen Shy whisper and caress. For them the nightingale should sing Full after it was June, And they should kiss and deem it spring, Under the harvest moon. ALFRED AUSTIN The Garden that I Love How sweetly smells the Honeysuckle In the hushed night, as if the world were one Of utter peace and love and gentleness. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH The golden-rod, that blossoms in the wild, Whispers a tale of Hope to Fancy's child. ANONYMOUS She sent him Lavender, owning her love. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH Thou seest though courtly pleasures want. Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant. For the soul-ravishing delicious sound Of instrumental music, we have found [ "6] The winged quiristers, with divers notes, Sent from their quaint recording, pretty throats, On every branch that compasseth our bower Without command contenting us each hour; For arras hangings and rich tapestry, We have sweet nature's best embroidery. ANTHONY MUNDAY SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST The autumn-time has come ; On woods that dream of bloom, And over purpling vines. The low sun fainter shines. The aster-flower is failing. The hazel's gold is paling; Yet overhead more near The eternal stars appear ! JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER My Triumph SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND The pallid silver of the harvest moon Floods all the Garden with its soft, weird light. The flowers long since have told their dewy beads. And naught is heard except the frog's small choir in distant meads. JOHN RUSSELL HAYES The Old-FasUoned Garden ["7 ] SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD And varied as the aster's flower, The charms of beauty bless my eye— For who would prize the coming hour, If only like the hours gone by ? ANONYMOUS Chide me not, laborious band, For the idle fliowers I brought ; Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought. RALPH WALDO EMERSON the Apology SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH What wondrous life is this I lead Pire apples drop about my head ; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; The neftarine, the curious peach, Into my hands themselves do reach ; Stumbling on melons, as I pass. Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. ANDREW MARVELL Thoughts in a Garden SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH Those bright leaves whose decay, Red, yellow or pale, rival the pride of summer. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY [ >i8 ] SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH In brisk wind of September The heavy-headed fruits Shake upon their bending boughs And drop from the shoots ; Some glow golden in the sun, Some show green and streaked, Some set forth a purple bloom. Some blush rosy-cheeked. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH I care not, Fortune, what you me deny. You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, You cannot shut the windows of the sky. Through which Aurora shews her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve. Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace. And I their toys to the great children leave ; Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave. JAMES THOMSON T^he Castle of Indolence SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH In autumn when the sun in virgine By radiant heat enripened hath our corne, When Luna, full of mutabilitie, As emperess, the diadem hath worne. Of our pole Ardtic, smiling as in scorn At our folie and our unstedfastnesse. [" IIQ ] JOHN SCELTON SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH The glad birds had sung A lullaby to-night ; the lark was fled On dropping wings, up from his dewy bed, To fan them in the rising sunbeams. WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE Phsronnida Welcome, welcome, happy pair, To these abodes where spicy air Breathes perfumes, and every sense Doth find his objedt's excellence ; Where's no heat nor cold extreme. THOMAS NABBES SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH Light and air Are ministers of gladness ; where these spread, Beauty abides and joy : where'er Life is There is no melancholy. ANONYMOUS [ I20 ] X OCTOBER OCTOBER OCTOBER FIRST GIVE me Oftober's meditative haze, Its gossamer mornings, dewy-wimpled eves, Dewy and fragrant, fragrant and secure. ALFRED AUSTIN In Veronka^s Garden OCTOBER SECOND There is something beyond the philosophies in the light, in the grass blades, the leaf, the grass-hopper, the sparrow on the wall. Some day the great and beautiful thought which hovers on the confines of the mind will at last alight. In that is hope, the whole sky is full of abounding hope. Something be- yond the books, that is consolation. RICHARD JEFFERIES Meadtno Thoughts OCTOBER THIRD There are still, in Oftober, a few red apples on the boughs of the trees in a little orchard beside the road. RICHARD JEFFERIES Round a London Copse Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile. EDWARD YOUNG Night Thoughts [ 123 ] OCTOBER FOURTH It was on Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright Oftober, Then when brackens are changed, and heather- blooms are faded. And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie ; Alders are green and oaks ; the rowan scarlet and yellow; One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the aspen, And the jewels of gold that were hung in the hair of the birch-tree. Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, and ear-rings. Cover her now o'er and o'er ; she is weary and scatters them from her. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH j, The Sothie of l^ober-na Vuolich OCTOBER FIFTH And thus do come the autumn flowers. Lingering like exiles on their way, And ere they ventured to our bowers Put on their best of bright and gay. ANONYMOUS OCTOBER SIXTH Now golden Autumn from her open lap Her fragrant bounties showers ; the fields are shorn; Inwardly smiling, the proud farmer views [ iH ] SPIRANTHES * Ladi^s^ Tresses ' P. 124 The rising pyramids that grace his yard And counts his large increase ; his barns are stored And groaning staddles bend beneath their load. JAMES THOMSON I'he Seasons OCTOBER SEVENTH What visionary tints the year puts on When falling leaves falter through motionless air, Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone. How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare As with her neftar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremu- lous hair. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ^« Indian Summer Reverie OCTOBER EIGHTH The rose to the wind has yielded ; all its leaves Lie strewn on the graveyard grass, Who knows, though he see the snow-cold blossom shed. If haply the heart that burned within the rose, The spirit in sense, the life of life, be dead ? If haply the wind that slays with storming snows Be one with the wind that quickens ? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A Reminiscence [ '^5 ] OCTOBER NINTH Nature never did betray The heart that loved her ; 't is her privilege Through all the scenes of this our life to lead From joy to joy. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Lines composed above Tintern Abbey Along the roadside, like the flowrers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrrought, Heavy with sunshine, droops the goldenrod. JOHN CREENLEAF WHITTIER OCTOBER TENTH As Israel, in days of old. Beneath the prophet's rod Amid the waters, backward rolled, A path triumphant trod. So, while thy lifted staff appears, Her pilgrim steps to guide, The autumn journeys on, nor fears The winter's threatening tide. JOHN B. TABS Golden-rod OCTOBER ELEVENTH Then, when the maples have burst out into color, showing like great bonfires along the hills, there is indeed a feast for the eye. JOHN BURROUGHS A Year in tht Fields [ "6] OCTOBER TWELFTH My garden invites into it all the birds of the coun- try by offering them the conveniency of springs and shades, solitude and shelter, and I do not suffer any one to destroy their nests in spring or drive them from their usual haunts in fruit-time. . . . By this means I have always the music of the season in its perfeftion. JOSEPH ADDISON Letter on Gardening OCTOBER THIRTEENTH By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight. CARDINAL NEWMAN OCTOBER FOURTEENTH The morning hath not lost her virgin blush ; Nor step, but mine, soiled the earth's tinselled robe ; How full of heaven this solitude appears. This healthful comfort of the happy swain. Who from his hard but peaceful bed roused up In 's morning's exercise saluted is By a full choir of feathered choristers. Wedding their notes to the enamoured air ! Here Nature, in her unaffefted dress Plated with valleys, and embossed with hills. Enchased with silver streams, and fringed with woods, Sits lovely in her native russet. WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE Love's ViSlory [ 1^7 ] OCTOBER FIFTEENTH It seems as if the day were not wholly profane, in which we have given heed to some natural objeft. RALPH WALDO EMERSON Nature OCTOBER SIXTEENTH Look out, look out ; there are shadows about ; The forest is donning its doublet of brown ; The willow-tree sways with a gloomier flout, Like a beautiful face with a gathering frown ! 'T is true we all know that summer must go. That the swallow will never stay long in our eaves ; Yet we'd rather be watching the cowslip blow. Than be counting the colors of Autumn leaves ! ELIZA COOK Autumn Thoughts OCTOBER SEVENTEENTH The Oftober leaf-fading is a festival, a triumphal pageant, rather than a funeral. LUCY LARCOM OCTOBER EIGHTEENTH Nay, cheer up, sister. Life is not quite over, Even if the year has done with corn and clover, With flowers and leaves ; besides, in faft, 't is true Some leaves remain, and some flowers too. For me and you. Now see my crops; I've brought you nuts and hops And when the leaf drops, why the walnut drops. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI The Months [ 1^8 ] OCTOBER NINETEENTH Oftober of the tawny crown, Whose heavy-laden hands drop down Blessing, the bounties of thy breath, And mildness of thy mellowing might, Fill earth and heaven with love and light Too sweet for fear to dream of death. Or memory, while thy joy lives yet, To know what joy would fain forget. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A Tear^s Carols OCTOBER TWENTIETH Swift summer into the autumn flowed, And frost in the mist of morning rode, Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, Mocking the spoil of the secret night. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The Sensitive Plant OCTOBER TWENTY-FIRST wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being. Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Ode to the West Wind OCTOBER TWENTY-SECOND 1 will make an end of my dinner ; There's pippins and cheese to come. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Merry Wives of Windsor [ 1^9 ] OCTOBER TWENTY-THIRD When Autumn scatters The leaves again. And piled sheaves bury The broad-wheeled wain,- Sing flutes of harvest, Where men rejoice ; Sing rounds of reapers — And my Love's voice ! AUSTIN DOBSON Song of Four Seasons OCTOBER TWENTY-FOURTH I pare this pippin round and round again, My shepherd's name to flourish on the plain. I fling th' unbroken paring o'er my head, Upon the grass a perfedl L is read. JOHN GAY A Love Divination OCTOBER TWENTY-FIFTH Acorns ripe down-pattering. While the autumn breezes sing. JOHN KEATS To Fancy OCTOBER TWENTY-SIXTH Thou crownest the year with thy goodness ; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness : and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing. r 1 THE PSALMS [ 130 ] OCTOBER TWENTY-SEVENTH Even our failures are a prophecy, Even our yearnings and our bitter tears. After that fair and good we could not grasp. GEORGE ELIOT OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH Far be the noise Of kings and courts from us, w^hose gentle souls Our kinder stars have steered another way. Free as the forest birds we'll pair together, Fly to the arbours, grots and flowery meads And, in soft murmurs, interchange our souls ; Together drink the crystal of the stream. Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields. And when the golden evening calls us home. Wing to our downy nest, and sleep till morn. NATHANIEL LEE OCTOBER TWENTY-NINTH Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes. The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons ! Something bright in all ! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall ! ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Autumn Fires [ 131 ] OCTOBtRsTHIRTIETH Though youth be passed and beauty fled, The constant heart its pledge redeems, Like Box, that guards the flowerless bed. And brighter from the contrast seems. ANONYMOUS OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST Is it midsummer here in the heavens that illumine Oftober on earth ? Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with de- sire of the days of his mirth. Redeem them, recall, or remember? For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky. Shines down from the heights to the depths. Will the watchword of dawn be July When to-morrow acclaims November ? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE An Autumn Vision [ 132 ] XI NOVEMBER NOVEMBER NOVEMBER FIRST NEXT November, limping, battered, Blinded in a whirl of leaf j Worn of want and travel-tattered, — Next November, limping, battered. AUSTIN DOBSON Masque of the Months NOVEMBER SECOND Here you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought. Devout above the meaning of your will. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH NOVEMBER THIRD That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sonnet Ixxiii [ '35 ] NOVEMBER FOURTH O russet-robed November, What ails thee so to smile ? Chill August, pale September, Endured a woful while. And fell as falls an ember From forth a flameless pile ; But golden-girt November Bids all she looks on smile. ALGERNON CHARLES SVyiNBURNE A Dream NOVEMBER FIFTH November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose : The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes. ROBERT BURNS The Cotter's Saturday Night NOVEMBER SIXTH Hawthorne had lost his motley lyverye. The naked twigges were shivering all for colde ; And, dropping down the teares abundantly. Ache thing, methought, with weeping eye me tolde The cruelle season. THOMAS SACKVILLE A Mirrour of Magistrates NOVEMBER SEVENTH Thou waitest late, and com'st alone When woods are bare and birds are flown. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT To the Fringed Gentian [ 136 ] Gnaphalium, like the thoughts we love, Can every change and season prove. ANONYMOUS Enjerlasting NOVEMBER EIGHTH The mountain ash, . , . Decked with autumnal berries, that outshine Spring's richest blossoms, yields a splendid show Amid the leafy woods. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH The Mountain Ask The ash has been less noticed for i': autumnal fo- liage than it deserves. The richest shades of plum- color to be seen — becoming by and by, or in cer- tain lights, a deep maroon — are afforded by this tree. Then at a distance there seems to be a sort of bloom on it, as upon the grape or plum. JOHN BURROUGHS A Tear in the Fields NOVEMBER NINTH See, Winter comes to rule the varied year. Sullen and sad with all his roving train, Vapours and clouds and storms. Be these my theme. These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. JAMES THOMSON The Seasons [ '37 ] NOVEMBER TENTH I don't know a more disappointing person than a cold sun ; and I am beginning to wrap my cloak closely around me, and to calculate the distance to my own fireside, recanting all the way my praises of November, and longing for the showery, flowery April, as much as if I were a half-chilled butterfly or a dahlia knocked down by the frost. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our f^illage NOVEMBER ELEVENTH Ah, dear me ! What a climate this is, that one can- not keep in the same mind about it for half an hour together. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD Our Village Our northern November day itself is like spring water. It is melted frost, dissolved snow. There is a chill in it and an exhilaration also. The forenoon is all morning and the afternoon all evening. The shadows seem to come forth and to revenge them- selves upon the day. The sunlight is diluted with darkness. The colors fade from the landscape, and only the sheen of the river lights up the gray and brown distance. JOHN BURROUGHS A Year in the Fields [138 J NOVEMBER TWELFTH The winding stream that glides along, The lark that tunes her early song, The mountain's brow, the sloping vale, The murmuring of the western gale, Have lost their charms. — The blooms are gone. PHILIP FRENEAU NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH The wind blew hollow frae the hills ; By fits the sun's departing beam Look'd on the fading yellow woods. ROBERT BURNS Lament for yames^ Earl of GUncairn NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawl- The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling For the year ; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling ; Come, months, come away. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Autumn NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH My autumn time and Nature's hold A dreamy tryst together, And both grown old, about us fold The golden-tissued weather. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER r liQ 1 St. Martin's Summer NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH Silly gardener summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ne Gardener NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH The sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. JOHN KEATS ha Belle Dame Sans Merci Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come. And for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Tie Last Walk in Autumn NOVEMBER EIGHTEENTH But when comes Winter With hail and storm And red fire roaring And ingle warm — Sing first sad going Of friends that part, Then sing glad meeting, — And my Love's heart. AUSTIN DOBSON Song of Four Seasons [ 140 ] NOVEMBER NINETEENTH The winter is upon us, not the snow ; The hills are etched on the horizon bare, The skies are iron grey, a bitter air, The meagre cloudlets shudder to and fro. One yellow leaf the listless wind doth blow. Like some strange butterfly, unclassed and rare. Your footsteps ring in frozen alleys, where The black trees seem to shiver as you go. ANDREW LANG After Albert Glatigny NOVEMBER TVi^ENTIETH For Winter came ; the wind was his whip : One choppy finger was on his lip : He had torn the catarafts from the hills And they clanked at his girdle like manacles; His breath was a chain which without a sound The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne. By the ten-fold blasts of the Arftic zone. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY T^he Sensitive Plant NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST The flowers have left their withered stalks And snow-encompassed lie the walks That once were gaily shared. A few green shrubs that dot the snow. Some gaunt-stemmed berries still aglow, — Else lonely have I fared. SARAH J. DAY Mayjioivers to Mistletoe [ HI ] NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken. Silent, and soft and slow Descends the snow. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and driving o'er the £elds. Seems nowhere to alight j the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. RALPH WALDO EMERSON The Snmv-Storm NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH The summer comes and the summer goes ; Wild flowers are fringing the dusty lanes, The swallows go darting through fragrant rains. Then all of a sudden — it snows. Dear Heart, our lives so happily flow. So lightly we heed the flying hours. We only know winter is gone — by the flowers. We only know winter is come — by the snow. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH [ 142 ] NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH Anon bleak Winter, from the frozen north Its treasuries of snow and hail pours forth ; Then stormy winds blow thro' the hazy sky ; In desolation nature seems to lie. JAMES THOMSON On a Country Life NOVEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH So all night long the storm roared on ; The morning broke without a sun ; All day the hoary meteor fell, And when the second morning shone We looked upon a world unknown ; No cloud above, no earth below, — A universe of sky and snow. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Snozu-Bound NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH Where are the swallows fled? Frozen and dead, Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore. O doubting heart ! Far over purple seas They wait, in sunny ease, The balmy southern breeze. To bring them to their northern homes once more. ADELAIDE PROCTER ui Doubting Heart [ H3 ] NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH The wrathful! winter, prochinge on apace, With blustring blasts had all ybard the scene, And old Saturnus with his frosty face With chilling colde had pearst the tender greene ; The mantels rent wherin enwrapped been The gladsome groves, that now lay overthrowen. The tapets torne and every bloom down blowne. THOMAS SACKVILLE A Mirrour of Magistrates NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH Would that it were possible for the heart and mind to enter into all the life that glows and teems upon the earth — to feel with it, hope with it, sorrow with it — and thereby to become a grander, nobler being. RICHARD JEFFERIES Nature Thoughts NOVEMBER THIRTIETH When daisies go, shall winter time Silver the simple grass with rime ; Autumnal frosts enchant the pool And make the cart-ruts beautiful ; And when snow-white the moor expands, How shall your children clap their hands ! ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Tife House Beautiful [ 144 ] XII DECEMBER DECEMBER DECEMBER FIRST 1AST of all the shrunk December J Cowled for age in ashen gray ; Fading like a fading ember, — Last of all the shrunk December, Him regarding, men remember Life and joy must pass away. AUSTIN DOBSON Masque of the Month DECEMBER SECOND Here now is Winter. Winter, after all, Is not so drear as was my boding dream, While autumn gleamed its latest watery gleam On sapless foliage too inert to fall. Still leaves and berries clothe my garden wall Where ivy thrives on scantiest sunny beam, Still here a bud and there a blossom seem Hopeful, and robin still is musical. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Later Life DECEMBER THIRD In December, when the dayes draw to be short, After November, when the nights wax noysome and long. LITTLE JOHN NOBODY [ H7 ] DECEMBER FOURTH Up in the morning's no for me, Up in the morning early ; When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw, I 'm sure it 's winter fairly. Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly ; Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, I'm sure it's winter fairly. ROBERT BURNS Up in the Morning Early DECEMBER FIFTH Last of all, December, The year's sands nearly run, Speeds on the shortest day. Curtails the sun ; With its bleak raw wind Lays the last leaves low, Brings back the nightly frosts, Brings back the snow. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI A Tear's Windfalls DECEMBER SIXTH If the mind loves solitude it has therefore acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in. ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT [ H8 ] EVERGREENS IN WINTER P. 14S DECEMBER SEVENTH The twelve gates were twelve pearls ; every several gate was of one pearl. By each of our months we enter upon a distinft and beautiful revelation of this world, which was meant to be the City of the Living God. The gateways that let in the cool of the north, the balm of the south, the glow of the east, and the tenderness of the west, — winter, spring, summer, autumn, — each brings earth its own peculiar charm. LUCY LARCOM DECEMBER EIGHTH Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. JOHN MILTON More servants wait on man Than he'll take notice of. In every path He treads down that which doth befriend him When sickness makes him pale and wan, O mighty Love. Man is one world and hath Another to attend him. GEORGE HERBERT Man DECEMBER NINTH Nay, no closed doors for me. But open doors and open hearts and glee To welcome young and old. Dimmest and brightest month am I — [ 149 ] My shortest days end, my lengthening days begin ; What matters more or less sun in the sky, When all is sun within ? CHRISTINA ROSSETTI The Months DECEMBER TENJH A white flake here and there — a snow lily Of last night's frost — our naked flower-beds hold, And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould The hungry redbreast gleams, no bloom, no bee, DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI DECEMBER ELEVENTH Winter, ruler of the inverted year ! WILLIAM COWPER The Winter E-uening He giveth his snow like wool. THE PSALMS DECEMBER TWELFTH My whiteness shadoweth Him who is most fair. All spotless ; yea, my whiteness which I wear Exalts His Purity beyond compare. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI All tk) Works Praise Thei DECEMBER THIRTEENTH 1 make the unstable stable, binding fast The world of waters prone to ripple past ; Thus praise I God, whose mercies I forecast. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI All Ihy Works Praise Thee [ 150] DECEMBER FOURTEENTH Besides, I heard enough to show Their love is proof against the snow. "Why wait," he said, "why wait for May, When love can warm a winter's day? " AUSTIN DOBSON Vignettes in Rhyme DECEMBER FIFTEENTH A wrinkled, crabbed man they pifture thee, Old Winter, with a rugged beard as gray As the long moss upon the apple-tree ; Blue lipped, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose, Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. They should have drawn thee by the high-heaped hearth. Old Winter ! seated in thy great armed chair, Watching the children at their Christmas mirth. ROBERT SOUTH EY Sonnet X'v DECEMBER SIXTEENTH Now, when the winter's keener breath began To crystallize the Baltic Ocean, To glace the lakes, to bridle up the floods. And periwig with wool the bald-pate woods. JOSHUA SYLVESTER [ '51 ] DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view The face of nature in a rich disguise And brightened every objeft to my eyes ; For every shrub and every blade of grass, And every pointed thorn, seemed w^rought in glass ; In pearls and rubies rich the haw^thorns shew, While through the ice the crimson berries glow. AMBROSE PHILLIPS Epistle to the Earl of Dorset DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH How joyously the lady bells Shout through the bluff north breeze; Loudly his boisterous bugle swells. And though the brooklets freeze. How fair the leafless hawthorn-tree Waves with its hoar-frost tracery 1 While sun-smiles throw o'er stalks and stems Sparkles so far transcending gems, The bard would gloze who said their sheen Did not out-diamond All brightest gauds that man hath seen. Worn by earth's proudest king or queen. In pomp and grandeur throned. THOMAS COOPER DECEMBER NINETEENTH How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows. An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, Whose plain, uncindtured front more kingly shows, Nowthat theobscuring courtier leaves are flown. [ '52] His boughs make music of the winter air, Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL The Oak DECEMBER TWENTIETH Now to the utmost southern goal The sun has traced his annual way, And backward now prepares to roll. And bless the north with earlier day. MARK AKENSIDE Ode for the Winter Solstice DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST In the month of December, when, naked and grim, The tree-tops thrust at the snow-cloud gray. And frozen tears fill the lids of day ; Then, in heavy teen, each breath between. We sigh, "Would the winter were well away !" Whatever the sun and the dial say, This is the longest day. EDITH THOMAS The Winter Solstice DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND When up the garden walk in vain We seek for Flora's lovely train. When the sweet hawthorn bower is bare, And bleak and cheerless is the air, When all seems desolate around, Christmas advances o'er the ground. EDWIN LEES Christmas and the Neiv Tear [ 153 ] DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawming singeth all night long ; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm. So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Hamlet The hall was dressed with holly green ; Forth to the wood did merry men go To gather in the mistletoe. SIR WALTER SCOTT Marmion DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH Unfold thy face, unmask thy ray, Shine forth, bright sun, double the day. Let no malignant, misty fume. Nor foggy vapor once presume To interpose thy perfeft sight. Let not His birthday clouded be. By whom thou shinest and we see. CHARLES HARVEY Christmas Day DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, The holly branch shone on the old oak wall ; The baron's retainers were blithe and gay, A-keeping a Christmas holiday. THOMAS H. BAYLEY [ 154. ] Soog' DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH When the soundless earth is muffled, And the caked snow is shuffled From the ploughboy's heavy shoon ; When the Night doth meet the Noon In a dark conspiracy To banish Even from her sky. JOHN KEATS Fancy DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone, Snow had fallen, snow on snow. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI Christmas Carol DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH The speckled sky is dim with snow, The light flakes falter and fall slow ; Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale. Silently drops a silvery veil ; And all the valley is shut in By flickering curtains gray and thin. But cheerily the chickadee Singeth to me on fence and tree ; The snow sails round him as he sings. White as the down of angels' wings. JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE Midivinter [ 155 ] DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on ; Judge not the play before the play is done ; Her plot has many changes; every day Speaks a new scene ; the last a6l crowns the play. FRANCIS QUARLES Emblems DECEMBER THIRTIETH December's sun is low ; the year is old. LUCY LARCOM See here thy pictured life ; pass some few years — Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, Thy sober Autumn fading into age, And pale concluding Winter comes at last. And shuts the scene. JAMES THOMSON The Seasons DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky. The flying cloud, the frosty light : The year is dying in the night ; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. ALFRED TENNYSON In Memoriam