The Funnies - Goodbye Christmas (1909)

Poem for June

A Red Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O, my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my Luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will love thess till, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run:

And fare thee well, my only luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

Poem for May

The Merry Month of May
~ by Thomas Dekker

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale:
Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;
And then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Poem for February

White as an Indian Pipe

by Emily Dickinson

White as an Indian Pipe

Red as a Cardinal Flower

Fabulous as a Moon at Noon

February Hour --

Poem for January

Here's to thee, old apple tree
Whence thou mayest bud
Whence thou mayest blow
Whence thou mayest bear apples enow.

-  Wassailing Song

In Jack-O-Lantern Time - George Brewster Gallup (1916)

from The Islands of the Blest, 1916

Poem for September

September
~ John Updike

The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.

Poem for August

Harvest
~by Mary Naylor

August, with its clouds of scented blooms,
August, with its great stacks of giant clouds,
August, with corn plants standing like rows of soldiers,
August, with watermelons, full and heavy, dozing in the sun,
August.

August, remember swimming in the lake?
August, remember baby Alice daintily eating berries from the vine?
August, remember Richie playing with the goat?
August, remember Donald practicing on his new saxophone?
August.

August, and its lightening laced sky,
August, and newlyweds Pat and Chet decorating their first home,
August, and Billy the Brave, Billy the Fearless, on his two wheel bike,
August, and shimmering memories hanging like drops of dew,
August.

August, the bountiful, August the full,
August, Mama hot, but smiling, over a platter of succulent roast chicken,
August, Daddy mixing her a frosty mint julep,
August, blessed harvest of memories,
August.

Poem for July

Mosquito is out,
it's the end of the day;
she's humming and hunting
 her evening away.
Who knows why such hunger
arrives on such wings
at sundown? I guess
it's the nature of things.

- N. M. Boedecker
Midsummer Night Itch

Poem for June

With June being the wedding month, I thought I'd share this rhyme entitled Rhymes and Jingles for Every Month from a 1910 book with the melodious title of Weddings and Wedding Anniversaries: A Book of Good Form in the Conduct of Wedding Ceremonies with Added Chapters on Various Anniversaries.

Quote for June

"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance."

- Bern Williams

Poem for May

May

by Sara Teasdale

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.

Poem for April

April's Charms

by William Henry Davies

When April scatters charms of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long --
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song;

When I can hear the woodland brook, that could
Not drown a babe, with all his threatening mood;
Upon these banks the violets make their home,
And let a few small strawberry blossoms come:

When I go forth on such a pleasant day,
One breath outdoors takes all my cares away;
It goes like heavy smoke, when flames take hold
Of wood that's green and fill a grate with gold.

Poem for March

The March wind roars

Like a lion in the sky,

And makes us shiver

As he passes by. 

When winds are soft,

And the days are warm and clear,

Just like a gentle lamb,

Then spring is here.

-  Unknown

Poem for February

Poem for January - The Snow Man

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter 
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; 

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter 

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves, 

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place 

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

A Yuletide Poem - The Mistletoe, A Fantasy of California by Carolus Ager

The Coming Frost

 Here's a little poem from the November 14 1885 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine heralding the wonders of the first frost.

The Bat

The Bat
by Lewis Carroll

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Poetry - A Guest at Dusk

A not-so-particular Saturday in July seemed to be a good time for a bit of poetry. Arthur Wallace Peach was head of the English department at Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont. I love his imagery of a dream softly coming to the door.