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XVIII.

The Calendar.

THE OPENING YEAR.

JANUARY.

RPHAN hours, the year is dead, Come and sigh, come and weep!

Merry hours smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See! it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So white winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold year to-day;

Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,

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Sweet flower! that peeping from thy russet stem.
Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month
Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed on thee
With blue, voluptuous eye); alas, poor flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year,
Perchance escaped its unknown polar cave.
E'en now the keen north-east is on its way,
Flower thou must perish! Shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth?

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE, 1770-1849.

FEBRUARY.

Dip down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new year, delaying long,
Thou dost expectant nature wrong,
Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer noons?

Bring orchis bring the fox-glove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew,
Laburnums dropping wells of fire.

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O thou new year, delaying long,
Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud,
And flood a fresher throat of song.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

MARCH.

The stormy March is come at last,

With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast,
That through the valley flies.

Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild, stormy month, in praise of thee!
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

For thou to northern lands again

The glad and glorious sun dost bring, And thou hast joined the gentler train, And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

And in thy reign of blast and storm

Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, When the changed winds are soft and warm, And heaven puts on the blue of May.

Then sing aloud the gushing rills,

And the full springs, from frost set free,

That, brightly leaping down the hills,

Are just set out to meet the sea.

The year's departing beauty hides

Of wintry storms the sullen threat;

But in thy sternest form abides

A look of kindly promise yet.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies,
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.

W. C. BRYANT.

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