WHAT SEASON OF THE YEAR DO YOU LOVE?
January gray is here,
Like a sexton by a grave;
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps; but oh, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers.
Shelley.
The seasons of the year,
----some arm'd in silver ice that glisten,
And some in gaudy green, come in like masquers.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
WHAT SEASON OF THE YEAR DO YOU LOVE?
The bold March wind!
The merry, boisterous, bold March wind!
Who in the violet's tender eyes
Casts a kiss,—and forward flies.
Barry Cornwall.
2. The beautiful spirit of Spring,
When the demons of Winter before her fly,
While the gentle fan of her delicate wing
Repels the ardor of Summer's eye.
James Nack.
3. Thou lovest the merry Summer months of beauty, song, and flowers,
Thou lovest the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers!
Up, up, thy heart, and walk abroad, fling cark and care aside,
Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide,
Or, underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree,
Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquillity.
Motherwell.
4. The eventide of Summer, when the trees
Yield their fresh honors to the passing breeze,
And woodland paths with autumn tints are dyed;
When the mild sun his paling lustre shrouds
In gorgeous draperies of golden clouds.
Mrs. E. C. Embury.
5. When on the breath of Autumn breeze,
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating, like an idle thought,
The fair white thistle-down.
Mary Howitt.
6. A day of Winter beauty. Through the night
The hoar-frost gather'd o'er each leaf and spray,
Weaving its filmy net-work, thin and bright,
And shimmering like silver in the ray
Of the soft sunny morning;—turf and tree
Prank'd in delicate embroidery,
And every wither'd stump and mossy stone
With gems encrusted and with seed-pearls sown!
Mrs. Whitman.
7. When May,
With her cap crown'd with roses,
Stands in her holiday dress in the fields, and the wind and the brooklet
Murmur gladness and peace, God's peace! with lips rosy tinted,
Whisper the race of the flowers, and merry, on balancing branches,
Birds are singing their carol, a jubilant hymn to the Highest.
Longfellow.
8. Autumn eventide;
When sinking on the blue hill's breast, the sun
Spreads the large bounty of his level blaze,
Lengthening the shade of mountains and tall trees.
George Lunt.
9. When on a keen December night, Jack Frost
Drives through mid air his chariot icy-wheel'd,
And from the sky's crisp ceiling, star-emboss'd,
Whiffs off the clouds that the pure blue concealed.
Tennent—Anster Fair.
10. When Spring, advancing, calls her feather'd quire,
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews are shed,
And breathe celestial lustres round her head.
Darwin.
11. June with its roses,——June!
The gladdest month of the capricious year,
With its thick foliage, and its sunlight clear,
And with a drowsy tune
Of the bright leaping waters, as they pass
Laughingly on, amid the springing grass!
W. H. Burleigh.
12. When Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside, a-weary.
Longfellow.
13. Winter, shod with fleecy snow,
Who cometh white, and cold, and mute,
Lest he should wake the Spring below.
Barry Cornwall.
14. When the south wind in May days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the horizon wall;
And with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a color of romance,
And infusing gentle heats,
Turns the sod to violets.
R. W. Emerson.
15. When Spring's unfolded blooms
Exhale in sweetness, that the skilful bee
May taste, at will, from their selected spoils,
To work her dulcet sweet.
Akenside—Pleasures of the Imagination.
16. The joyous Winter days,
When sits the soul intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
Thomson.
17. The Spring, as she passes along
With her eye of light, and her lip of song.
W. G. Clark.
18. October! Heaven's delicious breath,
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek sun grows brief,
And the year smiles, as drawing near its death.
W. C. Bryant.
19. The April rain! the April rain!
To list the pleasant sound,
Now soft and still like gentle dew,
Now drenching all the ground.
Pray tell me why an April shower
Is pleasanter to see,
Than falling drops of other rain?
I'm sure it is to thee.
Mrs. Seba Smith.
20. Spring, when from yon blue-topp'd mountain
She leaves her green print 'neath each spreading tree,
Her tuneful voice beside the swelling fountain
Giving sweet notes to its wild melody.
Julia H. Scott.
21. A season atween June and May,
Half prankt with Spring, with summer half embrown'd.
Thomson—Castle of Indolence.
22. 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.
W. C. Bryant.
23. Brave Winter and thou shalt ever agree,
Though a stern and frowning gaffer is he;
You like to hear him, with hail and rain,
Come tapping against the window pane;
You joy to see him come marching forth,
Begirt with the icicle gems of the north;
But you like him best when he comes bedight
In his velvet robes of stainless white.
Eliza Cook.
24. When "adieu!" father Winter has sadly said
To the world, when about withdrawing,
With his old white wig half off his head,
And his icicle fingers thawing!
Miss H. F. Gould.
25. Gentle May,
She with her robe of flowers;
She with her sun and sky, her clouds and showers!
Who bringeth forth unto the eye of day,
From their imprisoning and mysterious night,
The buds of many hues, the children of her light.
J. Lawrence, Jr.
26. The last days of Autumn, when the corn
Lies sweet and mellow in the harvest-field,
And the gay company of reapers bind
The bearded wheat in sheaves.
I. McLellan.
27. Drear Winter!
With no unholy awe we hear thy voice,
As by our dying embers, safely housed,
We in deep silence muse.
H. K. White.
28. You love to go in the capricious days
Of April, and hunt violets, when the rain
Is in their blue cups, trembling as they nod
So gracefully, to kisses of the wind.
N. P. Willis.
29. Merry, ever merry May!
Made of sun-gleams, shades, and showers,
Bursting buds, and breathing flowers;
Dripping-lock'd, and rosy-vested,
Violet-slipper'd, rainbow-crested,
Girdled with the eglantine,
Festoon'd with the flowering vine!
Gallagher.
30. When the warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year,
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Shelley.
31. When the angel of dread Winter cometh,
But not in anger. As he speeds along,
Borne on the chilling wind, he bids appear
A thousand varied hues the trees among!
What magic beauty doth his presence fling
Round every leaf that quivers in the dell,
Or shrub that to the mountain side doth cling!
And the bright scene the calm lake mirrors well,
As if within its depths were wove some golden spell.
H. F. Harrington.
32. Delicious Spring!
Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers,
Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing
From odorous buds of light-enfolded flowers,
And from enmassed bowers,
That over grassy walks their greenness fling.
Albert Pike.
33. The Summer, the radiant Summer's the fairest,
For green woods and mountains, for meadows and bowers,
For waters and fruits, and for flowers the rarest,
And for bright shining butterflies, lovely as flowers.
Mary Howitt.
34. When September's golden day,
Serenely still, intensely bright,
Fades on the umber'd hills away
And melts into the coming night.
Mrs. Whitman.
35. When Autumn chills the foliage, and sheds
O'er the piled leaves, among the evergreens,
All colors and all tints to grace the scene.
Rufus Dawes.
36. Ho! jewel-keeper of the hoary North!
Whence hast thou all thy treasures? Why, the mines
Of rich Golconda, since the world was young,
Would fail to furnish such a glorious show!
Yes, the Wintry king,
So long decried, hath revenue more rich
Than sparkling diamonds!
Mrs. Sigourney.
37. When Spring
From sunny slopes comes wandering,
Calling violets from the sleep,
That bound them under the snow-drift deep,
To open their childlike, asking eyes
On the new summer paradise.
J. R. Lowell.
38. Autumn! how lovely is thy pensive air!
But chief the sounds from thy reft woods delight;
Their deep, low murmurs to the soul impart
A solemn stillness.
Mrs. Tighe—Psyche.
39. When Winter nights grow long,
And winds without blow cold,
And we sit in a ring round the warm hearth-fire,
And listen to stories old.
Barry Cornwall.
40. Spring;
When blushing like a bride from Hope's trim bower,
She leaps, awakened by the pattering shower.
Coleridge.
41. Autumn dark on the mountains; when gray mists rest on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. The leaves whirl with the wind, and strew the graves of the dead.
Ossian.
42. When the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected flowers,
And wake the purple year.
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of Spring;
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs, through the clear blue sky,
Their gather'd fragrance fling.
Gray.
43. When golden Autumn from her open lap
The fragrant bounty showers.
Somerville—The Chace.
44. Dark Winter is a happy time:
God gives the earth repose, and earth bids man
Wipe his hot brow; the poet pours his rhyme,
And mirth awakes.
Allan Cunningham.
45. When Spring-tide approaches;
Leaf by leaf is developed, and warm'd by the radiant sunshine,
Blushes with purple and gold, till at last the perfected blossom
Opens its odorous chalice, and rocks with its crown to the breeze.
Longfellow.
46.The first day of May,
When the sun is rejoicing alone in heaven,
The clouds have all hurried away.
Down in the meadow the blossoms are waking,
Light on their twigs the young leaves are shaking,
Round the warm knolls the lambs are a-leaping,
The colt from his fold o'er the pasture is sweeping,
And on the bright lake,
The little waves break,
For there the cool west is at play.
J. G. Percival.
47. The desolate and dying year,
Yet lovely in its lifelessness,
As beauty stretch'd upon the bier,
In death's clay-cold and dark caress;
There's loveliness in its decay,
Which breathes, which lingers on it still.
J. G. Brooks.
48. Pale, rugged Winter, bending o'er his tread,
His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
His eyes a dusky light, congeal'd and dead,
His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.
Chatterton.
49. The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the skies,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
50. When the sun
More darkly tinges Spring's fair brow,
And laughing fields have just begun
The Summer's golden hues to show;
Earth still with flowers is richly dight,
And the last rose in gardens bides to glow.
George Bancroft.
51. The pryde, the manhode of the yeare,
When eke the ground is dight in its most deft[B] aumere.[C]
Rowley—(Chatterton.)
[B] Ornamental.
[C] Mantle.
52. An Autumn night
With a piercing sight,
And a step both strong and free;
And a voice for wonder,
Like the wrath of the thunder,
When he shouts to the stormy sea!
Barry Cornwall.
53. When Spring's first gale
Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie.
Mrs. Hemans.
54. When
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the rich west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves.
Keats.
55. When Spring pours out his showers, as is his wont,
And bathes the breathing tresses of meek eve.
Collins.
56. Autumn skies, when all the woods are hung
With many tints, the fading livery
Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms
Of winter; when the quiet winds awake
Faint dirges in the wither'd leaves, and breathe
Their sorrow through the grove.
Percival.
57. Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie.
Old Herbert.
58. When a soft haze is hanging o'er the hill,
Tinged with a purple light. How beautiful,
And yet how cold! 'Tis the first robe put on
By sad October.
W. G. Simms.
59. Spring doeth all she can, I trow;
She brings the bright hours,
She weaves the sweet flowers,
She dresseth her bowers
For all below.
Barry Cornwall.
60. Spring time,
Which crumbles Winter's gyves with tender might,
When in the genial breeze, (the breath of God,)
Come spouting up the unseal'd springs to light,
Flowers start from their dark prisons at our feet,
And woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet.
Bryant.