November / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

November

Who has not felt upon a Summer's day,

When Nature trick'd herself in all her bloom,

That this fair world did seem too blest a home

For man, sin's willing slave, death's lawful prey?

It was a summer thought, and pass'd away

When bright things fled: now, by November's gloom

Unparadised, Earth seems to share his doom,

And his sad lapse reflect in her decay.

All life seems dead! Methinks, the very blast

Lacks the redeeming grandeur, the wild sweep,

Of Winter's ruthless tempest, which lays waste

The hoary forest, and doth rouse from sleep

Nature's mute energies, till earth, sea, sky,

Yield to its challenge fierce, as fierce reply.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[December]

Rebecca Hey biography

October / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

October

Autumn! a touching monitress art thou!
When, like a widow, thou dost throw aside
Thy idle gauds, thy glance of conscious pride,
And, kerchief'd in dim clouds, dost meekly throw
A faded garland round thy sadden'd brow.
I love to cope thee in thy chasten'd mood,
For earnestly, yet still in tones subdued,
Thou breathest truths befitting me to know:
And all things aid thy sober teaching well;
The mournful music of the falling leaves
Goes to the heart emphatic as a knell;
And, for the reaper's song amid the sheaves,
Yon robin, on the almost leafless spray,
Pours wildly sweet his solitary lay.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[November]

Rebecca Hey biography

September / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

September

Now the Earth yields her strength! The teeming ground
Seems lighten'd of its curse: on every side
The hills rejoice, the valleys far and wide
Stand thick with corn, and harvest-songs resound.
The garden its rich dainties scatters round,
While lane and copse, by Nature only till'd,
An ample store of humbler fruitage yield,
Berries and nuts by Autumn suns embrown'd
But, ah! amid such visions of delight,
Those few rich tints upon the forest boughs,
Like the fine flush, so ominously bright,
Which on her victim's cheek Consumption throws,
Too truly speak of wasting and decay,
And, sighing, I pursue my woodland way.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)
from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[October]

Rebecca Hey biography

August / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

August

Oh! for the covert of some gelid cave,
Whose dank walls cradle a perennial stream,
That never flash'd to Summer's ardent beam,
But, chastely cold, might tempt in its clear wave
Some fabled nymph her fairy form to lave.
Now beauty yields to splendour, flowers to fruit:
No more "in linked sweetness" gaily shoot
Woodbine and rose from moss-grown wall, or brave
The beetling cliff, whose frowning horrors yield
To their sweet witchery. See, how broad noon,
With fervid glare, broods o'er yon sloping field,
"Now white to harvest:" yet another moon,
And then shall Plenty's copious horn be fill'd
With golden fruits from Spring's fair blossoms won.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[September]

Rebecca Hey biography

June / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

June

This is the year’s sweet prime! Methinks, like Youth,
‘Tis poetry embodied! Nay, I deem,
Delightsome June! that Fancy’s brightest dream
Outvies not thy fair beauty; nay in sooth,
For once she need but borrow hues from Truth
To picture thee. Now yield we every sense
To the sweet season’s genial influence,
And banish from our bosoms care and ruth.
Ask we for fragrance? lo! each little flower
Yields to our scarce-breathed wish its incense sweet;
For music? hie we to the glade and bower,
There the blithe birds shall give us welcome meet;
For beauty? deck’d in all its living power,
Earth lays her brightest trophies at our feet.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)
from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[July]

Rebecca Hey biography

May / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

May

The clouds "have wept their fill" the whole night long,
And what a change is wrought! But yesterday,
We look'd around, and scarce could deem that May,
The poet's theme,— the month of flowers and song,—
Could do her own sweet lineaments such wrong
As to frown on us like a very shrew:
To-day, we feel what poets sing is true;
Like them, we hail her reign, and wish it long.
See, how each budding spray, each floweret fair
Retains the liquid treasure! how the trees,
Lest summer should o'ertake them unaware,
Haste to unfold their leaflets to the breeze;
While in the orchard every moss-grown stem,
And sapling shoot, a thousand blossoms gem!

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[June]

Rebecca Hey biography

April / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

April

Capricious April! when we fain would find
A fitting emblem for inconstancy,
Thy changeful moods such emblem well supply;
For thy wild sallies sure no laws can bind,
No counsel tame. One moment, and the wind
Brings storms of sleet and "blossom-bruising hail;"
The next, not Summer breathes a softer gale,
Or looks upon us with a glance more kind.
And lo! to greet thee in thy alter'd mood,
Glad Nature hastes her fairest wreaths to bring,
Blithe daisy, nodding cowslip, and each bud
That owes allegiance to the early Spring.
May such sweet wooing chase thy frowns away,
And be thy smile as constant as 'tis gay!

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)
from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[May]

Rebecca Hey biography

March / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

March

Could sullen Winter, in his mid career,
Call from his magazine of storm and cloud
A ruder gale than this? How shrill, how loud,
Its angry dissonance assails the ear!
Where be those tokens now which late did cheer
The trusting heart with hopes that Spring was nigh?
Ah! as I gaze around, earth, sea, and sky,
In mournful cadence, seem to answer "Where?"
Yet wait we patiently a little while —
The boon for which we sigh is but delay'd;
So sure as Nature's summer charms did fade
At Autumn's touch, so sure at Spring's sweet smile
Shall trees again bud forth, and flowers unfold,
"And all be vernal rapture as of old."

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[April]

Rebecca Hey bibliography

July / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

July 

Gone are Spring's graces! mute her melodies!
Yet in their place what Summer can bestow,
Freely she yields; she tunes the river's flow
To gentlest music,— fills with sweets the breeze,—
Gives the last flush of leafage to the trees,—
Flowers to Earth's nursing bosom,— to the sky
Brightness oppressive from intensity,—
And calms, with halcyon wing, the azure seas.
Such are her spells!— yet I look back on Spring
(As middle age delights on youth to pore)
With feelings mournful, but unmurmuring.
I ever loved the bud more than the flower
And hope than full enjoyment: thence I cling
Alike to life's and nature's budding hour.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[August]

Rebecca Hey bibliography

February / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

February

Though Winter still asserts his right to reign,
He sways his sceptre now with gentler hand;
Nay, sometimes softens to a zephyr bland
The hurrying blast, which erst along the plain
Drove the skin-piercing sleet and pelting rain
In headlong rage; while, ever and anon,
He draws aside his veil of vapours dun,
That the bright sun may smile on us again.
To-day 'twould seem (so soft the west wind's sigh)
That the mild spirit of the infant Spring
Was brooding o'er the spots where hidden lie
Such early flowers as are the first to fling
On earth's green lap their wreaths of various dye —
Flowers, round whose forms sweet hopes and sweeter memories cling.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)

from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[March]

Rebecca Hey biography

January / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

January

Keen blows the bitter spirit of the North,
And, like a warrior foil'd, with powerless beam
The sun eyes wistfully the frost-bound stream,
As if he long'd, though vainly, to call forth
His by-gone strength, that he might deck the earth
In all her summer beauty, and set free
River and brooklet, till, towards the sea
Onward they bounded with melodious mirth.
But many a storm, ere that may be, shall blow,
And many a cloud frown darkling o'er the sky;
And be it so, if but affection's glow
Play round the lips, and brighten in the eye,
When round the hearth long-sever'd friends do meet,
(So ancient usage claims,) the opening to greet.

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)
from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[February]

Rebecca Hey bibliography

December / Rebecca Hey

from The Poetical Calendar

December

As human life begins and ends with woe,
So doth the year with darkness and with storm.
Mute is each sound, and vanish'd each fair form
That wont to cheer us; yet a sacred glow —
A moral beauty,— to which Autumn's show,
Or Spring's sweet blandishments, or Summer's bloom,
Are but vain pageants,— mitigate the gloom,
What time December's angry tempests blow.
'Twas when the "Earth had doff'd her gaudy trim,
As if in awe," that she received her Lord;
And angels jubilant attuned the hymn
Which the church echoes still in sweet accord,
And ever shall, while Time his course doth fill,
'Glory to God on high! on earth, peace and good will!'

~~
Rebecca Hey (1797-1867)
from Recollections of the Lakes, and other poems, 1841

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[January]

Rebecca Hey biography