A Calendar of Sonnets

by

Helen Jackson

1886

Table of Contents

January

February.

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

January

O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,

What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn

Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn

Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire

The streams than under ice. June could not hire

Her roses to forego the strength they learn

In sleeping on thy breast.

No fires can burn

The bridges thou dost lay where men desire

In vain to build.

O Heart, when Love’s sun goes

To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,

Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.

Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.

Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,

The winter is the winter’s own release.

February.

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;

And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence still;

No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,

And willow stems grow daily red and bright.

These are the days when ancients held a rite

Of expiation for the old year’s ill,

And prayer to purify the new year’s will:

Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,

Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,

And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed

The ardent summer’s joy to have and taste;

Fit days, to give to last year’s losses heed,

To reckon clear the new life’s sterner need;

Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

March

Month which the warring ancients strangely styled

The month of war,—as if in their fierce ways

Were any month of peace!—in thy rough days

I find no war in Nature, though the wild

Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled

At feet of writhing trees. The violets raise

Their heads without affright, without amaze,

And sleep through all the din, as sleeps a child.

And he who watches well may well discern

Sweet expectation in each living thing.

Like pregnant mother the sweet earth doth yearn;

In secret joy makes ready for the spring;

And hidden, sacred, in her breast doth bear

Annunciation lilies for the year.

April

No days such honored days as these! When yet

Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide

For some fair thing which should forever bide

On earth, her beauteous memory to set

In fitting frame that no age could forget,

Her name in lovely April’s name did hide,

And leave it there, eternally allied

To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.

And when fair Aphrodite passed from earth,

Her shrines forgotten and her feasts of mirth,

A holier symbol still in seal and sign,

Sweet April took, of kingdom most divine,

When Christ ascended, in the time of birth

Of spring anémones, in Palestine.

May

O month when they who love must love and wed!

Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,

And seek to tell the memories he had brought

From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?

I know not if the rosy showers shed

From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought

In fields, or if the robin’s call be fraught

The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read

Thee best who in the ancient time did say

Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:

No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day

So subtly sweet as memories which unfold

In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,

To sun themselves once more before they die.

June

O month whose promise and fulfilment blend,

And burst in one! it seems the earth can store

In all her roomy house no treasure more;

Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend

On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end.

And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before

It hath made ready at its hidden core

Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend

Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee

Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth?

No room is left for deeper ecstasy?

Watch 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.