October's Bright Blue Weather / Helen Hunt Jackson

October's Bright Blue Weather

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
    And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
    October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
    Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
    And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
    To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
    Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
    In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
    Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
    Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
    Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
    In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
    Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
    By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
    October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
    Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
    October's bright blue weather.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

"October's Bright Blue Weather" read by Robin Cotter for LibriVox. Courtesy Talking Books.

New Year's Morning / Helen Hunt Jackson

New Year’s Morning

 Only a night from old to new!
Only a night, and so much wrought!
The Old Year’s heart all weary grew,
But said: “The New Year rest has brought.”
The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down,
As in a grave; but, trusting, said:
“The blossoms of the New Year’s crown
Bloom from the ashes of the dead.”
The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: “I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year’s generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
I have been reckless; it shall be
Quiet and calm and pure of life.
I was a slave; it shall go free,
And find sweet peace where I leave strife.”
Only a night from old to new!
Never a night such changes brought.
The Old Year had its work to do;
No New Year miracles are wrought.

 Always a night from old to new!
Night and the healing balm of sleep!
Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,
Morn of a festival to keep.
All nights are sacred nights to make
Confession and resolve and prayer;
All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from Poems, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

"New Year's Morning" read for the Canby Now Podcast.

A Christmas Symphony / Helen Hunt Jackson (I)

O Christmas stars! your pregnant silentness,
          Mute syllabled in rhythmic light,
          Leads on to-night,
And beckons, as three thousand years ago
It beckoning led. We, simple shepherds, know
          Little we can confess,
Beyond that we are poor, and creep
And wander with our sheep,
     Who love and follow us. We hear,
If we attend, a singing in the sky;
     But feel no fear.
Knowing that God is always nigh,
And none pass by,
Except His Sons, who cannot bring
Tidings of evil, since they sing.
Wise men with gifts are hurrying.
In haste to seek the meaning of the Star,
In search of worship which is new and far.
          We are but humble, so we keep
          On through the night, contented with our sheep,
And with the stars. Between us and the east,
     No wall, no tree, no cloud, lifts bar.
We know the sunrise. Not one least
          Of all its tokens can escape
     Our eyes that watch. But all days are
As nights, and nights as days.
In our still ways.
     We have no dread of any shape
          Which darkness can assume or fill;
     We are not weary; we can wait;
     God's hours are never late.
The wise men say they will return,
Revealing unto us the things they learn.
          Mayhap! Meantime the Star stands still;
And, having that, we have the Sign.
If we mistake, God is divine !

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[continued]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

A Christmas Symphony / Helen Hunt Jackson (II)

II

Oh, not alone because His name is Christ,
          Oh, not alone because Judea waits
     This man-child for her King, the Star stands still.
          Its glory reinstates,
     Beyond humiliation's utmost ill,
     On peerless throne, which she alone can fill,
Each earthly woman. Motherhood is priced
          Of God, at price no man may dare
     To lessen, or misunderstand.
          The motherhood which came
          To virgin sets in vestal flame,
     Fed by each new-born infant's hand,
          With Heaven's air,
     With Heaven's food,
The crown of purest purity revealed,
Virginity eternal signed and sealed
     Upon all motherhood !

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[continued]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

A Christmas Symphony / Helen Hunt Jackson (III)

III

Oh, not alone because His name is Christ,
          Oh, not alone because Judea waits
     This man-child for her King, the Star stands still.
          The Babe has mates.
   Childhood shall be forever on the earth;
And no man who has hurt or lightly priced
          So much as one sweet hair
               On one sweet infant's head,
     But shall be cursed! Henceforth all things fulfil
   Protection to each sacred birth.
          No spot shall dare
               Refuse a shelter. Beasts shall tread
     More lightly; and distress,
     And poverty, and loneliness.
Yea, and all darkness, shall devise
To shield each place wherein an infant lies.
     And wisdom shall come seeking it with gift,
And worship it with myrrh and frankincense;
     And kings shall tremble if it lift
          Its hand against a throne.
          But mighty in its own
Great feebleness, and safe in God's defence.
     No harm can touch it, and no death can kill,
     Without its Father's will!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[continued]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

A Christmas Symphony / Helen Hunt Jackson (IV)

IV

Oh, not alone because His name is Christ,
          Oh, not alone because Judea waits
     This man-child for her King, the Star stands still.
     The universe must utter, and fulfil
          The mighty voice which states,
     The mighty destiny which holds,
          Its key-note and its ultimate design.
     Waste places and the deserts must perceive
That they are priced,
          No less than gardens in the Heart Divine.
Sorrow her sorrowing must leave,
     And learn one sign
          With joy. And Loss and Gain
          Must be no more.
     And all things which have gone before,
          And all things which remain,
          And all of Life, and all of Death be slain
          In mighty birth, whose name
     Is called Redemption! Praise!
          Praise to God! The same
     To-day and yesterday, and in all days
          Forever! Praise!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[continued]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

A Christmas Symphony / Helen Hunt Jackson (V)

V

Oh, Christmas stars! Your pregnant silentness,
          Mute syllabled in rhythmic light,
          Fills all the night.
     No doubt, on all your golden shores,
          Full music rings
          Of Happiness
          As sweet as ours.
Midway in that great tideless stream which pours,
     And builds its shining road through trackless space,
From you to us, and us to you, must be
     Some mystic place,
Where all our voices meet, and melt
Into this solemn silence which is felt,
          And sense of sound mysterious brings
Where sound is not. This is God's secret. He
     Sits centred in his myriads of skies,
     Where seas of sound and seas of silence rise,
And break together in one note and key,
     Divinely limitless in harmony!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) 
from Poems, 1886 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

Read the complete poem here

September [1892] / Helen Hunt Jackson

September

The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.

'T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from Poems, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

"September" read by Ian King for LibriVox. Courtesy Poems Cafe.

January / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

January

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
                              O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"January" read for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

[February]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

December / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

December

The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes
Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed:
Far fairer than when placidly it streamed,
The brook its frozen architecture makes,
And under bridges white its swift way takes.
Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed
Might linger on the road; or one who deemed
His message hostile gently for their sakes
Who listened might reveal it by degrees.
We gird against the cold of winter wind
Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep,
In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease,
And every shortening day, as shadows creep
O'er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"December" read by Paula Messina for LibriVox. Courtesy The Finest Archive.

[January]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

Read the complete Calendar of Sonnets.

November / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

November

This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet's day of pain?

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"November" read by Paula Messina for LibriVox. Courtesy The Finest Archive.

[December]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

October / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

October

The month of carnival of all the year,
When Nature lets the wild earth go its way,
And spend whole seasons on a single day.
The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;
October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;
The summer charily her reds doth lay
Like jewels on her costliest array;
October, scornful, burns them on a bier.
The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign
Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,
Oar empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,
October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue,
Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through
Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson 
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"October" read by Heather Stewart. Courtesy Christopher MacIntyre.

[November]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

September [1886] / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

September

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!
The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung
On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue
To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped
In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;
And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among
The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung
Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped
The purple grape,--last thing to ripen, late
By very reason of its precious cost.
O Heart, remember, vintages are lost
If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.
Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate,
Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"September" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[October]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

August / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

August

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects' aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-aged summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of Golden-Rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson 
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"August" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[September]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

July / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

July 

Some flowers are withered and some joys have died;
The garden reeks with an East Indian scent
From beds where gillyflowers stand weak and spent;
The white heat pales the skies from side to side;
But in still lakes and rivers, cool, content,
Like starry blooms on a new firmament,
White lilies float and regally abide.
In vain the cruel skies their hot rays shed;
The lily does not feel their brazen glare.
In vain the pallid clouds refuse to share
Their dews, the lily feels no thirst, no dread.
Unharmed she lifts her queenly face and head;
She drinks of living waters and keeps fair.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson 
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain]

"July" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[August]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

June / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

June

O month whose promise and fulfilment blend,
And burst in one! it seems the earth can store
In all her roomy house no treasure more;
Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend
On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end.
And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before
It hath made ready at its hidden core
Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend
Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee
Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth?
No room is left for deeper ecstacy?
Watch well if seeds grow strong, to scatter free
Germs for thy future summers on the earth.
A joy which is but joy soon comes to dearth.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"July" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[July]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

May / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

May

O month when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,
To sun themselves once more before they die.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"May read by Ghizela Rowe. Courtesy Ghizela Rowe - Topic.

[June]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

April / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

April

No days such honored days as these! While yet
Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide
For some fair thing which should forever bide
On earth, her beauteous memory to set
In fitting frame that no age could forget,
Her name in lovely April's name did hide,
And leave it there, eternally allied
To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.
And when fair Aphrodite passed from earth,
Her shrines forgotten and her feasts of mirth,
A holier symbol still in seal and sign,
Sweet April took, of kingdom most divine,
When Christ ascended, in the time of birth
Of spring anemones, in Palestine.

~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain]

"April" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[May]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

March / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

March

Month which the warring ancients strangely styled
The month of war, – as if in their fierce ways
Were any month of peace! – in thy rough days
I find no war in Nature, though the wild
 Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled
 As feet of writhing trees. The violets raise
 Their heads without affright, without amaze,
 And sleep through all the din, as sleeps a child.
 And he who watches well may well discern
 Sweet expectation in each living thing.
 Like pregnant mother the sweet earth doth yearn;
 In secret joy makes ready for the spring;
 And hidden, sacred, in her breast doth bear
 Annunciation lilies for the year.

~~~
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain]

"March" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[April]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography

February / Helen Hunt Jackson

from A Calendar of Sonnets

February

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are the days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;
Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,
To reckon clear the new life's sterner need;
Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

 ~~
Helen Hunt Jackson 
from A Calendar of Sonnets, 1891 

[Poem is in the public domain]

"February" read by Fox in the Stars. Courtesy LibriVox Listening Library.

[March]

Helen Hunt Jackson biography