FIRST of the months comes Janivier,
The coldest month of all the year;
When days are short and nights are long
When snows fall deep and frost is strong;
When Wealth by fires doth count his gold,
And Want stands shivering all a-cold.
Wet February next comes by,
With chill damp earth, and dripping sky; But heart cheer up; the days speed on,— Winds blow, suns shine, and thaws are gone; And in the garden may be seen
Upspringing flowers and buddings green.
March, ha! he comes like March of old,
A blustering, cordial friend and bold!
He calls the peasant to his toil,
And trims with him the wholesome soil.
Flocks multiply the seed is sown—
Its increase is of Heaven alone!
Next April comes with shine and showers, Green mantling leaves and opening flowers, Loud-singing birds, low-humming bees, And the white-blossomed orchard trees; And that which busy March did sow, Begins in April's warmth to grow.
The Winter now is gone and past,
And flowery May advances fast ;
Birds sing, rains fall, and sunshine glows,
Till the rich earth with joy o'erflows!
O Lord, who hast so crowned the Spring
We bless Thee for each gracious thing!
Come on, come on! 'tis Summer time,
The golden year is in its prime !
June speeds along 'mid flowers and dews,
Rainbows, clear skies, and sunset hues ;
And hark the cuckoo ! and the blithe
Low ringing of the early scythe !
The year is full ! 'tis bright July,
And God in thunder passeth by !
Far in the fields, till close of day,
The peasant people make the hay;
And darker grows the forest bough,
And singing birds are silent now.
Next, August comes: now look around,
The harvest-fields are golden-crowned;
And sturdy reapers, bending, go
With scythe or sickle, all a-row ;
And gleaners with their burdens boon
Come home beneath the harvest moon.
September, rich in corn and wine,
Of the twelve months completeth nine.
Now apples rosy grow; and seed
Ripens in tree and flower and weed;
Now the green acorn groweth brown,
And ruddy nuts come showering down.
The Summer it is ended now,
And Autumn tinteth every bough;
The days are bright; the air is still,
October's mists are on the hill;
Down droops the fern, and fades the heather,
And thistle-down floats like a feather.
Dark on the earth November lies;
Cloud, fog, and storm o'ergloom the skies;
The matted leaves lie 'neath our tread,
And hollow winds wail overhead :
Pile up the hearth-its heartsome blaze
Cheers, like a sun, the darkest days!
The year it groweth old apace;
Eleven months have run their race,
And dull December brings to earth
That time which gave our Saviour birth.
is done!-let all revere
The great, good Father of the year. Mary Howitt.
HOW MAY WAS FIRST MADE.
As Spring upon a silver cloud
Lay looking on the world below,
Watching the breezes as they bowed
The buds and blosoms to and fro,
She saw the fields with hawthorns walled:
Said Spring, "New buds I will create."
She to a flower-spirit called,
Who on the month of May did wait,
And bade her fetch a hawthorn spray,
That she might make the buds of May.
Said Spring, "The grass looks green and bright,
The hawthorn hedges too are green,
I'll sprinkle them with flowers of light,
Such stars as earth hath never seen;
And all through England's velvet vales,
Her steep hillsides and haunted streams,
Where woodlands dip into the dales,
Where'er the hawthorn stands and dreams,
Where thick-leaved trees make dark the day,
I'll light the land with flowers of May.
"Like pearly dew-drops, white and round,
The shut-up buds shall first appear,
And in them be such fragrance found,
As breeze before did never bear;
Such as in Eden only dwelt,
When angels hover'd round its bowers,
And long-haired Eve at morning knelt
In innocence amid the flowers;
While the whole air was every way
Fill'd with a perfume sweet as May.
"And oft shall groups of children come,
Threading their way through shady places,
From many a peaceful English home,
The sunshine falling on their faces;
Starting with merry voice the thrush,
As through green lanes they wander singing, To gather the sweet hawthorn bush,
Which homeward in the evening bringing, With smiling faces, they shall say, 'There's nothing half so sweet as May."
"And many a poet yet unborn
Shall link its name with some sweet lay, And children oft at early morn
Shall gather blossoms of the May ;
With eyes bright as the silver dews,
Which on the rounded May-buds sleep;
And parted lips whose smiles diffuse
A sunshine o'er the watch they keep,
Shall open all their white array
Of pearls, ranged like the buds of May."
Spring shook the cloud on which she lay,
And silvered o'er the hawthorn spray,
Then showered down the buds of May.
THE SNOWDROP.
I COME When the cold drifting snow
Lies white upon the frozen ground,
When winter winds do loudly blow,
And all is bare and bleak around; While Spring lies 'neath a winding-sheet, Protected from the snow and sleet.
I am the herald of the flowers,
Usher them in and then I go;
In vain you search the summer bowers,
And Spring's sweet face I scarcely know;
Though for her eager watch I keep,
Till Winter wakens from his sleep.
Though trembling to her skirt I cling,
I never meet her face to face,
Although I am the child of Spring,
I never feel her warm embrace.
When April comes with sun and showers,
I am not found among the flowers.
And so I come and so I go,
A little white neglected thing ;
Left to stand out amid the snow:
And yet I know my mother Spring
Oft comes near me when I'm asleep,
And in my dreams I hear her weep.
I come from a far distant land,
But cannot see for sleet and snow
His face who leads me by the hand,
But 'tis an angel's voice, I know,
That cheers me in my lonely hours,
And sends me here to wake the flowers.
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