Love-in-Idleness / Jane G. Austin

Love-in-Idleness

A time for everything? O yes,
And August is the time, I guess,
To gather Love-in-idleness.
Am I not right? Fair one, confess!

Where shall we find it? Everywhere;
It floats upon the sultry air,
It glows through all the garden fair,
Tangles our feet in rosy snare.

How shall we know it? O most sweet,
Thou'lt know it by thy pulses' beat,
Thou'lt know it by the fragrance fleet
What time its flower and fading meet.

It fades so soon? Is not that best?
It dies ere use has dimmed its zest,
It dies in all its grace confessed,
Its hour of glory is its rest.

Hail, August monarch! Lo thy slaves bow down
And weave of Love-in-Idleness thy crown.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: August, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Bob Collowan, A tub of love-in-idleness (viola tricolor) 

[detail], 2013. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[January]

Jane G. Austin biography

Cedros / Jane G. Austin

Cedros

Between the rows of yellowing corn
Our patient donkeys paced along,
All in the glorious summer morn,
            At Cedros.
Afar we saw the glimmering shine
Of league on league of sparkling brine,
We breathed an ether rare and fine,
            At Cedros.

A laughing troop of golden hours
Strewed all our sunny path with flowers:
The blackbird's song dropped down in showers,
            At Cedros,
And, catching up the gladsome strain,
We sang, each answering each again,
And gayly shook the bridal rein,
            At Cedros.

That day can never come again,
Yet still I feel the tender pain
That thrilled my heart with that refrain,
            At Cedros.
I see the sapphire sea and sky,
The yellowing fields before me lie,
I hear the joyous melody,
            At Cedros.

Oh, happy hour! Oh, joyous time!
When life was in its summer prime,
And seemed a thing almost sublime,
            At Cedros.
The future comes with joy or pain,
But never shall we three again
Ride through the fields of golden grain,
Singing that sad and sweet refrain,
            At Cedros.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: July, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Angrense, Alagoa Bay, Cedros, Flores, Azores, 2007. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

[August]

Jane G. Austin biography

The Dance of Death / Jane G. Austin

The Dance of Death

 
And now the old world holds high holiday
And pranks herself in garments brave and gay;
June roses burst from folded buds of May;
The air is full of perfume and of blithe birds' lay.
Come then, my heart, let us fare forth with these,
In all this joy dull sorrow finds surcease;
My sullen lute, beneath these blooming trees
And swept by fingers of the odorous breeze,
Sure thy mute strings will wake to life to-day
And sing to June a blithesome roundelay.

From out the wood there crept a shadow still,
Before it, died the sunshine off the hill;
It swept the lute, and on its icy breath
Faltered a song, a song of Love and Death.

O dance, ye rose-crowned hours of June,
    Beneath the merry sun,
And dance beneath the loving moon
    When jocund day is done.

Bright, bright, the sunshine and the moon
    But bitter black the shade:
Beneath thy roses, blithesome June,
    Are there no dead men laid?

Dim wraiths of dead and buried Junes,
    Sweet dreams and hearts aglow,
Of brighter suns and sweeter moons
    Of hopes dead long ago?

O joyous June, heap high your flowers,
    You cannot hide the graves beneath;
Sing, birds, and dance, ye merry hours,

    Tread with my ghosts the Dance of Death.

With one wild note of rapture or of pain
The lute-strings snapped and all was still again.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: June, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

FrDr, Danse Macabre (Tallinn), 2016. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[July]

Jane G. Austin biography

May / Jane G. Austin

May

Sweet month of Mary, month of May,
What pale pure flowerets strew thy way;
                Bellissima!

Low lilies press about thy feet
With violets changing kisses sweet;
                Dulcissima!

While through the snow that latest lingers
The Mayflower thrusts her fairy fingers;
                Rubentissima!

As though the Virgin's holy mood
Struck tender joys of motherhood;
                Sanctissima!

Even thy moon, so cold and clear,
Shines with a beauty half austere;
                Splendissima!

While chill pure winds from eastern seas
Enfold no dream of tropic breeze;
                Purissima!

.        .        .        .        .        .        .        .

But month of Mary, month of May,
Still with our love we'll strew thy way;
                Bellissima!

For O, sweet maiden of the year,
We cannot choose but hold thee dear;
                Carissima!

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: May, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Bart Everson, Wildflowers – New Orleans May 2021. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[June]

Jane G. Austin biography

April / Jane G. Austin

April

            Nay, laughing April, stay,
            And while I clasp thee, say:

Art thou a child whose wanton will
    Holds no deep wells of true desire?
Art thou a maid, ay, sweet and chill,
    Whose argent moon beams frozen fire?

She smiles, and weeps, and smiles again,
    Yet knows not why she smiles or weeps,
Unless o'er changeful hearts of men
    By charm of change her hold she keeps.

O changeful heart that cannot rest
    Because it seeks for something higher,
Scaling the heights to stand confessed,
    This is not yet what I desire.

For still beyond our feet or eyes
    In awful sheen there soars a crest.
On that dread height contentment lies,
    Come life, come death, I there will rest!

And so we pass within the cloud
    That hides the topmost mountain range,
And hidden in its frozen shroud,
    "We shall not die, but we shall change."

            So tearful April fies,
            Drawn up to summer skies.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: April, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomson200, Allatoona Mountains seen from Kennesaw Mountain, April 2017 (detail).

CC0 1.0, public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

[May]

Jane G. Austin biography

March / Jane G. Austin

March

There is no month so fair a type of life
In its first conscious strength and joy of strife
        As thou, wild moon of March!
Thou with they hurtling storms and soft blue sky
Within whose depths the great white cumuli
        Sleep under heaven's arch.

Thou with thy swift chill winds that snatch the breath
From pouting lips and swoop to grewsome death
        The sailor and his ship,
And then in sudden sunburst triumphing
Make rainbows in the shining drops that cling
        Upon his frozen lip.

I love thee well, nay, but I love thee not,
How can I tell if I do love or not,
        Unstable and untrue!
The raging lion now, and now the lamb,
The winter's blast, laden with springtide balm,
        O wild March, which is you?

A type of life, yea, of thy life, O friend!
And yet I know not thy life to the end:
        Thy life holds better things.
And March holds May, and May sweet summertime,
And summer dies and in its death sublime
        The grain of autumn brings.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: March, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

    Henri Camus, Storm at Pors-Loubous, France, March 2007. CC BY 1.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[April]

Jane G. Austin biography

January / Jane G. Austin

January

O dark and cold! O dead and drear!
    O bitter end of weary strife!
Art thou indeed the glad New Year,
    Thou stillborn mockery of life?

And art thou then the final fate,
    The end for which our years were born,
So white, so still, so desolate,
    A night that never leads to morn?

It is not peace, this frozen calm,
    And yet it is surcease of pain,
Nepenthe is the surest balm,
    For wounds so healed, bleed not again.

Yes, we will love thee, month of death,
    Yes, we will call thee glad New Year,
Freeze with thy kiss my weary breath,
    See, I am thine, I know no fear.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: January, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

    Lori Iverson, National Elk Refuge, Wyoming, January 2012. CC BY 2.0 Wikimedia Commons.

[February]

Jane G. Austin biography

February / Jane G. Austin

February

I thought the world was cold in death;
    The flowers, the birds, all life was gone,
For January's bitter breath
    Had slain the bloom and hushed the song.

And still the earth is cold and white,
    And mead and forest yet are bare;
But there's a something in the light
    That says the germ of life is there.

Deep down within the frozen brook
    I hear a murmur, faint and sweet,
And lo! the ice breaks as I look,
    And living waters touch my feet.

Within the forest's leafless shade
    I hear a spring-bird's hopeful lay:
O life to frozen death betrayed
    Thy death shall end in life to-day.

And in my still heart's frozen cell
    The pulses struggle to be free;
While sweet the bird sings, who can tell
    But life may bloom again for thee!

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: February, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Nenton, Snow and flowers. Rugova Mountains, 2012. CC BY-DS 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[March]

Jane G. Austin biography