Poem: The months

The months

(Specially written for Grannie’s Birthday Book and reproduced here as a protest against those who said I had pinched it from someone else.)

January beginneth here
So bless you all my friends dear
May all the saints in the calendar
Keep you in the glad New Year

With February cometh rain
Floodeth fields and dykes again
Sometimes snow lies on the plain
And nips the budding shoots of grain

March is like the God of War
Full of clamour, rage and roar
The more men bar him our, the more
He shrieks and rattles at the door

Fair April like a modest maid
In showers and sunshine is arrayed
And with her cometh long-delayed
Spring, for which all men have prayed

May doth paint the hawthorns bright
With star-like flowers of pink and white
And with her rosy fingers light
Draws fairy circles in the night

By the nodding flowers in bloom
By the happy bird’s tune
By the dearth of winter’s gloom
We shall know that it is June

April’s buds to ripeness grown
May’s pale blossoms dead and gone
All June’s lovely roses blown
Yet the summer is not done

August suns burn up the dew
Agues skies are brightly blue
Summer blows her kisses due
Before she slips away from you

In the foaming cider glass
Drink to harvest lad and lass
Beware you fat geese for alas
Yet you may roast on Michael’s Mass

With then nip of coming snow
Loud October’s whirlwinds blow
Summer’s ragged banners go
Down the wind before the foe

While the logs are burning bright
In the grate this aye night
Thank ye all Saint Benedite
Who keeps the house from wicked sprite

In the winter, rude and wild
When the snow in swathes was piled
Then was born of Mary mild
Jesus Christ, the Holy Child

Ox and ass to bend the knee
Straw thy pillow for to be
King of Heaven in Beggarie
Where there was none of welcome thee?

LBL 1932