December / Edwin Arnold

December

In fret-work of frost and spangle of snow
Unto his end the year doth wend;
And sadly for some the days did go,
And glad for some were beginning and end!
But — sad or glad — grieve not for his death,
Mournfully counting your measures of breath,
You, that, before the stars began,
Were seed of woman and promise of man,
You who are older than Aldebaran!
It was but a ring round about the Sun,
One passing dance of the planets done;
One step of the Infinite Minuet
Which the great worlds pace, to a music set
By Life immortal and Love divine:
Whereof is struck, in your threescore and ten,
One chord of the harmony, fair and fine,
Of that which maketh us women and men!
In fret-work of frost and spangle of snow,
Sad or glad — let the old year go!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[January]

Edwin Arnold biography

Hannes Grobe, New Year's Eve 2022/23 in Bremerhaven, Germany.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

November / Edwin Arnold

November

Come! in thy veil of ashen cloud
With mists around thee, like a shroud,
And wan face coloured with no light
Of sun or moon, by day or night;
I would not see thee glad and gay,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

I would not see thee otherwise,
Gray month! that hast the dying eyes;
Cold month! that com'st with icy hands
Chaining the waters and the lands!
So didst thou chill two hearts at play,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

And yet, I know, behind thy mists
The bright Sun shines, Love's star subsists!
If we could lift thy veil, may be,
Thy hidden face were good to see!
Come as thou wilt — I say not nay,
Dark month! that called my Love away!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904), 1865

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[December]

Edwin Arnold biography

Thanurietz, Rain and Misty Mountains, November 2017 (detail). 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October / Edwin Arnold

October

A bold brunette she is, radiant with mirth,
    Who comes a-tripping over corn-fields cropped;
    Fruits and blown roses, from her full arms dropped,
Carpet her feet along the gladdened earth;

Around her brow glitters a careless crown
    Of bronzed oak, and apple-leaves, and vine;
    And russet-nuts and country berries twine
About her gleaming shoulders and loose gown.

Like grapes at vintage, where the ripe wine glows,
    Glows so her sweet cheek, summer-touched but fair;
    And, like grape-tendrils, all her wealth of hair,
Gold on a ground of brown, nods as she goes:

Grapes too, a-spirt, her brimming fingers bear,
    A dainty winepress, pouring wet and warm
    The crimson river over wrist and arm,
And on her lips — adding no crimson there!

Ah! golden autumn hours — fly not so fast!
    Let the sweet Lady long with us delay;
    The sunset makes the sun so wished-for, — stay!
Of three fair sisters — loveliest and the last!

But after laughter ever follows grief,
    And Pleasure's sunshine brings its shadow Pain;
    Even now begins the dreary time again.
The first dull patter of the first dead leaf.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[November]

Edwin Arnold biography

ТиЈок, Zhiva - Old Slavic Goddess of Autumn, 2024. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

September / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

September

The harvest-moon stands on the sea,
    Her golden rim's adrip;
She lights the sheaves on many a lea,
    The sails on many a ship;
Glitter, sweet Queen! upon the spray,
    And glimmer on the heather;
Right fair thy ray to gild the way
    Where lovers walk together.

The red wheat rustles, and the vines
    Are purple to the foot;
And true-love, waiting patient, wins
    Its blessed time of fruit:
Lamp of all lovers, Lady-moon!
    Light these ripe lips together
Which reap alone a harvest sown
    Long ere September weather.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[October]

Edwin Arnold biography

Archie 2909, Full Moon, August 2021. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

August / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

August

(From the German)

Gerda Arendt, Apple tree in field, Ehrenbach

(detail). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Once, with a landlord wondrous fine,
    A weary guest, I tarried;
A golden pippin was his sign,
    Upon a green branch carried!

Mine host — he was an apple-tree
    With whom I took my leisure;
Fair fruit, and mellowed juicily,
    He gave me from his treasure.

There came to that same hostel gay
    Bright guests, in brave adorning;
A merry feast they made all day,
    And sang, and slept till morning.

I, too, to rest my body laid
    On bed of crimson clover;
The landlord with his own broad shade
    Carefully spread me over.

I rose; — I called to pay the score,
    But "No!" he grandly boweth;
Now, root and fruit, for evermore
    God bless him, while he groweth!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[September]

Edwin Arnold biography

July / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

July

Proud, on the bosom of the river.
    White-winged the vessels come and go,
Dropping down with ingots to deliver,
    Drifting up stately on the flow.
Mirrored in the sparkling waters under,
    Mightily rising to the sky,
Kings of the sunshine and the thunder,
    Come they and go they, in July.

Quiet, in the reaches of the river,
    Blooms the sea-poppy all alone;
Hidden by the marshy sedges ever,
    Who knows its golden cup is blown?
Who cares if far-distant billows,
    Eocking the great ships to sea,
Underneath the tassels of the willows
    Rocks the sea-poppy and the bee?

Rocks the marsh-blossom with its burden,
    Onlv a worker bee at most!
Working for nothinQ- but the guerdon
    To live on its honey in the frost.
The outward-bound ye watch, and the incomer;
    The bee and the blossom none espy!
But these have their portion in the summer.
    In the glad, gold sunshine of July.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[August]

Edwin Arnold biography

Christopher Hilton, Sea poppy on the seashore, Southchurch, 2012. 

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

June / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

June

Lily of June, pearl-petalled, emerald-leaved!
   A sceptre thou, a silver-studded wand
By lusty June, the Lord of Summer, waved,
   To give to blade and bud his high command.

Meneerke Bloem, Lilium 

candidum, 2012. CC BY-SA

 3,0, Wikimedia Commons.

Nay! not a sceptre, but a seated Bride,
   The white Sultana of a world of flowers.
Chosen, o'er all their passion and their pride,
   To reign with June, Lady of azure hours.

Ah, Vestal-bosomed! Thou that, all the May,
   From maidenly reserve wouldst not depart,
Till June's warm wooing won thee to display
   The golden secret hidden at thy heart:

Lay thy white heart bare to the Summer King!
   Brim thy broad chalice for him with fresh rain!
Fling to him from thy milky censers, fling
   Fine fragrances, a Bride without a stain!

Without?— look, June! thy pearly love is smutched!
   That which did wake her gentle beauty, slays;
Alas! that nothing lovely lasts, if touched
   By aught more earnest than a longing gaze.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[July]

Edwin Arnold biography

May / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

May

Who cares on the land to stay,
Wasting the wealth of a day?
    The fallow fields leave
    For the meadows that heave,
And away to the sea — away!

To the meadows far out on the deep,
Whose ploughs are the winds that sweep
    The green furrows high,
    When into the sky
The silvery foam-bells leap.

At sea! — my bark — at sea!
With the winds, and the wild clouds and me;
    The low shore soon
    Will be down with the moon.
And none on the waves but we!

Thy wings are abroad, my bird!
And the sound of their speed is heard;
    The scud flieth west,
    And the gull to her nest,
But they lag far behind us, my bird!

White as my true love's neck
Are the sails that shadow thy deck;
    And thine image wan,
    Like the stream-mirrored swan,
Lies dim on thy dancing track.

On! on! with a swoop and a swirl,
High over the clear waves' curl;
    Under thy prow.
    Like a fairy, now.
Make the blue water bubble with pearl.

Lo! yonder, my lady, the light!
'Tis the last of the land in sight!
    Look once — and away!
    Bows down in tbe spray;
Lighted on by the lamps of the night!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[June]

Edwin Arnold biography

Johannes Christiaan Schotel (1787-1838), "Frigate", Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

April / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

April

Blossom of the almond-trees,
April's gift to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling!—
Coming when no flow'rets dare
Trust the cruel outer air;
When the royal king-cup bold
Will not don his coat of gold;
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps its silver for the May;—
Coming when no flow'rets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.
Almond blossom, sent to teach us
That the spring-days soon will reach us,
Lest, with longing over-tried,
We die as the violets died.
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson 'broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen;
Ah! when wintry winds are swinging
All thy red bells into ringing,
With a bee in every bell,
Almond bloom, we greet thee well!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[May]

Edwin Arnold biography

3268zauber, Almond Blossoms, April 2009. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

March / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

March

Welcome, North-wind! from the Norland;
Strike upon our foremost foreland,
Sweep away across the moorland,
        Do thy lusty kind!
Thou and we were born together
In the black Norwegian weather;
Birds we be of one brave feather,
        Welcome, bully wind!

Buss us! set our girls' cheeks glowing;
Southern blood asks sun for flowing,
North blood warms when winds are blowing,
        Most of all winds, thou;
There's a sea-smack in thy kisses
Better than all breezy blisses,
So we know, our kinsman this is:
        Buss us! cheek and brow.

Rollick out thy wild sea-catches,
Roar thy stormy mad sea-snatches,
What bare masts and battened hatches
        Thou hast left behind;
Ring it, till our ears shall ring, too,
How thou mad'st the Frenchman bring-to:
That's the music Northmen sing to,
        Burly brother wind!

Go! with train of spray and sea-bird,
Fling the milky waves to leeward,
Drive the ragged rain-clouds seaward,
        Chase the scudding ships;
To the South-wind take our greeting,
Bid him bring the Spring — his Sweeting —
Say what glad hearts wait her meeting,
        What bright eyes and lips.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[April]

Edwin Arnold biography

Robert Henri (1865-1929), The March Wind, ~1902. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

February / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

 
February

Fair Grecian legend, that, in Spring,
Seeking sweet tale for sunnier hours,
Fabled how Enna's queen did bring
Back from the underworld her flowers!

Whence come ye else, goblets of gold,
Which men the yellow crocus call ?
You snow-drops, maiden-meek and cold,
What other fingers let you fall?

What hand but hers, who, wont to rove
The asphodel in Himera,
Torn thence by an ungentle love,
Flung not her favourites away?

King of dark death! on thoughts that roam
Thy passion and thy power were spent:
When blossom-time is clue at home,
Homeward the soul's strong wings are bent.

So comes she. with her pleasant wont,
When Spring-time chases Winter cold,
Couching against his frozen front
Her tiny spears of green and gold.

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[March]

Edwin Arnold biography

Ziegler175, Burgfelden Krokus, 1983. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

January / Edwin Arnold

from The Twelve Months

January

Rain — hail — sleet — snow! — Yet, in my East,
This is the time when palm-trees quicken
With flowers, wherefrom the Arabs' feast
Of amber dates will thenceforth thicken.

Palms, — he and she, — in sight they grow;
And o'er the desert-sands is wafted,
On light airs of the After-glow,
That golden dust whence fruit is grafted.

Ah, happy trees! who feel no frost
Of winter-time, to chill your gladness;
And grow not close enough for cost
Of bliss fulfilled, which heightens sadness;

No gray reality's alloy
Your green ideal can diminish!
You have love's kiss, in all its joy
, Without love's lips, which let it finish!

~~

Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

from Poems: National and non-oriental, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[February]

Edwin Arnold biography

Ahmad Elq, Paul Trees in Saudi Arabia, 2012. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.