A Calendar of Sonnets | Page 2

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.
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.
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-agèd 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!
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!
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,
Or 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!
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?
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.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Calendar of Sonnets, by Helen Hunt
Jackson
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