In May / Madison Cawein

 

Rolf Dietrich Brecher, Spring, 2018.

CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

In May

When you and I in the hills went Maying,
     You and I in the bright May weather,
     The birds, that sang on the boughs together,
There in the green of the woods, kept saying
     All that my heart was saying low,
     ‘I love you! love you!’ soft and low,
          And did you know?
When you and I in the hills went Maying.

There where the brook on its rocks went winking,
     There by its banks where the May had led us,
     Flowers, that bloomed in the woods and meadows,
Azure and gold at our feet, kept thinking
     All that my soul was thinking there,
     ‘I love you! love you!’ softly there
          And did you care?
There where the brook on its rocks went winking.

Whatever befalls through fate’s compelling,
     Should our paths unite or our pathways sever,
     In the Mays to come I shall feel forever
The wildflowers thinking, the wild birds telling,
     In words as soft as the falling dew,
     The love that I keep here still for you,
          Both deep and true,
Whatever befalls through fate’s compelling.

~~
Madison Cawein (1865-1914)
from Myth and Romance, 1899

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Madison Cawein biography

"In May" read for Audiobook Passion.

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.

Jane G. Austin biography

To My Mother / Christina Rossetti

    To My Mother

Harrison Weir (1824-1906),

 Flowers for Mother,  ca. 1880.

 Wikimedia Commons. 

    
    To-day's your natal day;
            Sweet flowers I bring:
    Mother, accept, I pray
            My offering.

    And may you happy live,
            And long us bless;
    Receiving as you give
            Great happiness.

~~
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
from Poems for Children, 1907

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Christina Rossetti biography

"To My Mother" read for Eternal Poems.

Daffodils / William Wordsworth

Daffodils 

 I wander'd lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
    Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~~
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), 1804
from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900

(edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch), 1919

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Wordsworth biography

"Daffodils (I wander'd lonely as a cloud)" read for Inspired4Nature.

Autumn / Richard Chenevix Trench

from The Seasons

Autumn

Thine, autumn, is unwelcome lore,
To tell the world its pomp is o'er.

To whisper in the rose's ear
That all her beauty is no more;

And bid her own the faith how vain,
Which spring to her so lately swore.

 
A queen deposed, she quits her state;
The nightingales her fall deplore.

The hundred-voiced bird may woo
The thousand-leaved flower no more.

The jasmine sinks its head in shame,
The sharp east wind its tresses tore,

And robbed in passing cruelly
The tulip of the crown it wore.

The lily's sword is broken now,
That was so bright and keen before;

And not a blast can blow, but strews
With leaf of gold the earth's dank floor,

The piping winds sing Nature's dirge,
As through the forest bleak they roar,

Whose leafy screen, like locks of eld,
Each day shows scantier than before.

Thou fadest as a flower, O man!
Of food for musing here is store.

O man, thou fallest as a leaf!
Pace thoughtfully earth's leafstrewn floor;

Welcome the sadness of the time,
And lay to heart this natural lore.

~~

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1866)
from Poems, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Chenevix Trench biography

"The Seasons" by Trench, read by Sonia for LibriVox. Courtesy Rhodoclassics.

("Autumn" begins at 4:15.)

September / Madison Cawein

September

The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires,
    Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows
    Of clematis, through which September goes,
Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,
Are flanked by hotter hues: by tawny fires
    Of acrid marigolds,--that light long rows
    Of lamps,--and salvias, red as day's red close,--
That torches seem,--by which the Month attires
Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen,
    Towering imperial in her two-fold crown
    Of harvest and of vintage; all her form
Majestic gold and purple: in her mien
    The might of motherhood; her baby brown,
    Abundance, high on one exultant arm.

~~

Madison Cawein (1865-1914)
from Weeds by the Wall, 1901

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Madison Cawein biography

"September" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

The Landscape / William Shenstone

    Samuel Evans (1762-1835), The Leasowes (Shenstone's estate), 1788. Wikimedia Commons.

Song II.  The Landscape

How pleased within my native bowers
    Erewhile I pass'd the day!
Was ever scene so deck'd with flowers?
    Were ever flowers so gay?

How sweetly smiled the hill, the vale,
    And all the landscape round!
The river gliding down the dale,
    The hill with beeches crown'd!

But now, when urged by tender woes
    I speed to meet my dear,
That hill and stream my zeal oppose,
    And check my fond career.

No more, since Daphne was my theme,
    Their wonted charms I see:
That verdant hill, and silver stream,
    Divide my love and me.

~~
William Shenstone (1714-1763)
from Poetical Works
(edited by George Gilfilan), 1854

William Shenstone biography

"The Landskip" (The Landscape) read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy PoemsCafe.

Gathered Roses / Francis W. Bourdillon

Gathered Roses

Bill Nicholls, Bee in a Rose, 2016.

CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Only a bee made prisoner,
    Caught in a gathered rose!
Was he not 'ware, a flower so fair
    For the first gatherer grows?

Only a heart made prisoner,
    Going out free no more!
Was he not 'ware, a face so fair
    Must have been gathered before?

~~
Francis W. Bourdillon (1852-1921)
from Among the Flowers, and other poems, 1878

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis W. Bourdillon biography

June Days / Charles Lotin Hildreth

June Days

Wane on, delicious days of shower and shine,
Cool, cloudy morns and noontides white and warm,
And eyes that melt in azure hyaline,
Wane to midsummer's long, lethean calm.

William Trost Richards
(1833-1905), June Day, 1915.
Wikimedia Commons.

For all the woods are shrill with stress of song,
Where soft wings flutter down to new-built nests,
And turbulent sweet sounds are heard day-long,
As of innumerable marriage feasts.

The flame of flowers is bright along the plain,
The hills are dim beneath pale, brooding skies;
And, like a kiss that thrills through every vein,
The warm wind, odor-laden, stirs and sighs,

Murmuring like music heard afar by night
From boats becalmed on star-illumined streams,
Sad as the memory of a lost delight,
Sweet as the voices that are heard in dreams.

Wane, siren days, and break the spell that wrings
The burdened breast with undefined regret,
Wayward desires, and vain imaginings,
The nameless longing, and the idle fret.

Wane on! ye wake the love that tempts and flies;
And where love is, thence peace departs full soon;
But, ah, how sweet love is, e'en though it dies
With thy last roses, O enchantress June!

~~
Charles Lotin Hildreth (1856-1896)
from The Masque of Death, and other poems, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Charles Lotin Hildreth biography

Song on May Morning / John Milton

Song on May Morning

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
    Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
    Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
    Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
    Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
    And welcom thee, and wish thee long.

~~
John Milton (1608-1674)
from Poetical Works, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Milton biography

"Song on May Morning" read by Tom Kinsella. Courtesy LITT at Stockton.

An Easter Carol / Christina Rossetti

An Easter Carol

            Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.

            Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

            Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

            Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

            Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

            Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

            Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

            All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

            Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

            All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

~~
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
from A Pageant, and other poems, 1881

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Christina Rossetti biography

"An Easter Carol" read by Robin Shuckburgh. Courtesy The Cotswold Explorer.

Spring: An ode / Jane West

Spring: An ode

And now, obedient to divine command,
Reluctant winter yields his rigid reign;
Exulting Nature breaks his cruel band,
And welcomes Flora to her old domain;
She from her chariot strews ambrosial flowers;
'Tis she, that decks the vales, and renovates the bowers.

The pendent icicle perceives the thaw,
Then quits the straw-roof'd cot, and melts away;
The snow beholds, and hastens to withdraw,
But loses first its innocent array:
Assuming now, a robe of murky hue
More soil'd, as more receding from our view.

Ice in its northern magazine lies chain'd,
And all the furious hurricanes are bound;
Zephyr, by Eurus fierce too long restrain'd,
Now claps his pinions at the joyful sound;
The gentle shower descends; earth opens wide
Her jaws, and thirsty sucks the copious tide.

The glorious sun with vegetative powers
Endues the air, resolving to unchain
The willing world, while in his noon-tide hours:
Well knowing, that his sister Queen again,
When she resum'd her silver throne, would freeze
The brooks and rills, and hardly spare the seas.

And now alternate, what bright Phoebus thaws
By day, by night the Queen of shade congeals:
Nature, subservient to discordant laws,
In all her springs the dire commotion feels:
The bud, that noon-tide suns inspir'd to rise,
Lies dead at evening, chill'd by frosty skies.

Mid the confusion, whilst we scarce can tell
If winter stays or flies, the snow-drop rears
Her humid head, and fills each drooping bell
With incense pure and odoriferous tears:
Safe in its native innocence it stands,
Nor dreads keen Boreas, nor the wintry bands.

Yet, but a herald to the crocus proud,
Who peers a King in golden arms array'd,
Around him daffodils and violets crowd,
And primroses dear to the wood-land maid;
Succeeded quickly by a thousand flowers,
All that delight in meadows, hills, and bowers.

Behold, the elm puts on its dark array
Of dusky green; forth shoots the alder dun;
In the light breeze the leaves of aspin play;
The bushy sycamore desires the sun;
And last, as if the sylvan band to close,
The regal oak his ample foliage shows.

But see, the young creation is awake;
The household bee forsakes her waxen cell;
The finny nations wanton in the lake;
The gentle birds their pleasing descants tell;
The lordly steed indignant paws the ground;
And o'er green thymy banks the lambkins bound.

And now the etherial ram the zenith leaves,
The ram of old surcharg'd with Helle's fate;
This, the proud bull, his rival stern, perceives,
And issue forth in all his radiant state,
He bends his starry horns, enwreath'd with light,
As if to rend the dusky veil of night.

The blessed sun his beams benignly pours
On the glad earth, and bids creation smile:
Exuberant nature pours forth all her stores,
And chearful swains renew their annual toil:
War too, by intermission unsubdu'd,
Resumes its rage for violence and blood!

But that I fear my mortal muse would faint,
And leave me aidless in th' unbounded space,
My song the starry firmament should paint,
How planets run their vast eliptic race,
Arcturus urging on his starry team,
Orion's sword, and Ursa's guiding beam.

But let me stop the thought, nor strive to rein
This fiery steed, nor compass heights divine;
Lest I, dismounted on the Lycian plain,
Mourn like Bellerophon the rash design;
Enough that I with rude and doric strain,
Oh genial spring! have hail'd thy welcome reign.

~~
Jane West (1756-1852)
from Miscellaneous Poems, 1786

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Jane West biography

Workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) & Hendrick van Balen the Elder (1573–1632),

Flora im Blumengarten, circa 1617-1618 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

The Death of the Flowers / William Cullen Bryant

The Death Of The Flowers

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

~~

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

from Poems, 1848

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Cullen Bryant biography

Librivox, "The Death of the Flowers." Courtesy Poems Cafe.

The Succession of the Four Sweet Months / Robert Herrick

The Succession of the Four Sweet Months

First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Gems than those two that went before:
Then (lastly) July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.

~~
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
from Hesperides, 1648

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Robert Herrick biography

"The Succession of the Four Sweet Months" read by VOX Cape Town.

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 / Madison Cawein

Fritz Flohr Renolds, Rattlesnake Weed,

2013. CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons

May

The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed,
That spangle the woods and dance —
No gleam of gold that the twilights hold
Is strong as their necromance:
For, under the oaks where the woodpaths lead,
The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed
Are the May's own utterance.

The azure stars of the bluet bloom,
That sprinkle the woodland's trance —
No blink of blue that a cloud lets through
Is sweet as their countenance:
For, over the knolls that the woods perfume,
The azure stars of the bluet bloom
Are the light of the May's own glance.

With her wondering words and her looks she comes,
In a sunbeam of a gown;
She needs but think and the blossoms wink,
But look, and they shower down.
By orchard ways, where the wild bee hums,
With her wondering words and her looks she comes
Like a little maid to town.

~~

Madison Cawein (1865-1914)
from Kentucky Poems, 1903

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Madison Cawein biography

"May" read for Audiobook Passion.

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.

A Song of Winter / Emily Pfeiffer

A Song of Winter

Barbed blossom of the guarded gorse,
    I love thee where I see thee shine:
Thou sweetener of our common-ways,
    And brightener of our wintry days.

Flower of the gorse, the rose is dead,
    Thou art undying, O be mine!
Be mine with all thy thorns, and prest
    Close on a heart that asks not rest.

I pluck thee and thy stigma set
    Upon my breast and on my brow,
Blow, buds, and plenish so my wreath
    That none may know the wounds beneath.

O thorny crown of burning gold,
    No festal coronal art thou;
Thy honeyed blossoms are but hives
    That guard the growth of wingëd lives.

I saw thee in the time of flowers
    As sunshine spilled upon the land,
Or burning bushes all ablaze
    With sacred fire; but went my ways;

I went my ways, and as I went
    Plucked kindlier blooms on either hand;
Now of those blooms so passing sweet
    None lives to stay my passing feet.

And yet thy lamp upon the hill
    Feeds on the autumn's dying sigh,
And from thy midst comes murmuring
A music sweeter than in spring.

Barbed blossom of the guarded gorse,
    Be mine to wear until I die,
And mine the wounds of love which still
    Bear witness to his human will.

~~
Emily Pfeiffer (1827-1890)
from Sonnets and Songs, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Pfeiffer biography

J.J. Hake, Whin or gorse near St. Andrews, Scotland. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Christmas Violets / Andrew Lang

Christmas Violets

Christmas postcard, ca. 1900/s, 

Murrell family, Coalfields Local

 History Asson,, Wikimedia Commons.

Last night I found the violets
You sent me once across the sea;
From gardens that the winter frets,
In summer lands they came to me.

Still fragrant of the English earth,
Still hurried from the frozen dew,
To me they spoke of Christmas mirth,
They spoke of England, spoke of you.

The flowers are scentless, black, and sere,
The perfume long has passed away;
The sea whose tides are year by year
Is set between us, chill and gray.

But you have reached a windless age,
The haven of a happy clime;
You do not dread the winter's rage,
Although we missed the summer-time.

And like the flower's breath over sea,
Across the gulf of time and pain,
To night returns the memory
Of love that lived not all in vain.

~~
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December 1884

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Andrew Lang biography