The Bobbs Merrill Company Publishers • Indianapolis
Copyright 1912
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
To John Davis
♑︎
Bleak January! Cold as fate, And ever colder—ever keener— Our very hair cut while we wait By winds that clip it ever cleaner: Cold as a miser‘s buried gold, Or nether-deeps of old tradition— Jeems January! you‘re a cold Proposition!
♒︎
You, February,—seem to be Old January‘s understudy, But play the part too vaudeville-y— With wind too moist and snow too muddy— You overfreeze and overthaw— Your “Hos‘ler Jo”-like recitation But hints that you’re at best, a raw Imitation.
♓︎
And, March, you‘ve got no friends to spare— Warm friends, I mean—unless coal-dealers, Or/gas-well owners, pipin‘ where The piper‘s paid—above all spielers; You are a month, too, of complex Perversities beyond solution— A sorto‘ “loveliest of your sex” Institution!
♈︎
But, April when you kindo’ come A-sa’nterin down along your roadway, The Bar is down, and we’re at home, And you’re as welcome as a show-day! First thing we know, the sunshine falls Spring-like,
♉︎
And May!—It’s warmin’ jest to see The crick thawed clear ag’in and dancin’— ’Pear-like it’s tickled ’most as me A-prancin’ ’crosst it with my pants on! And then to hear that bluebird whet His old song up and lance it through you, Clean through the boy’s heart beatin’ yet— Hallylooya!
♊︎
June—’Ll, I jest git doped on June!— The trees and grass all at their greenest— The round earth swung ’twixt sun and moon, Jest at its—so to say—serenest:— In country,—stars and whipperwhills; In town,—all night the boys invadin’ Leadin’ citizens’ winder-sills, Sair-a-nadin’.
♋︎
Fish still a-bitin’-some; but ’most Too hot fer anything but layin’ Jest do-less like, and the watching’ clo’st The treetops and the squirrels playin’— Their tail-tips switched ’bove knot and limb, But keepin’ most in seuquestration— Leavin’ a big part to the im- Maingation.
♌︎
Now when it’s August—I can tell It by a hunderd signs and over;— They is a mixed ripe-apple-smell And mashed-down grass and musty clover; Bees is as lazy ’most as me— Bee-bird eats ’em—gap’s his wings out So lazy ’at I don’t think he Spits their stings out!
♍︎
September, you appeal to all, Both young and old, lordly and lowly; You stuff the hay-mow, trough and stall, Till horse and cow’s as roly-poly As pigs is, slopped on buttermilk And brand, shipstuff and ’tater-peelin’s— And folks, too, feelin’ fine as silk With all their feelin’s!
♎︎
If I’d be’n asked for my advice, And thought the thing out, ca’m and sober,— Sizin’ the months all at once or twice— I’ la’nch’d the year out with October… All Nature then jest veiled and dressed In weddin’ garments, oranmented With ripe-fruit-gems—and kissin’ jest New-invented!
♏︎
I’m ’feared November’s hopes is few And far between!—Cold as a Monday- Washday, er a lodge-man who You’ got to pallbear for on Sunday; Colder and colder every day— The fixed official time for sighin’;— A sinkin’ state you jest can’t stay In, or die in!
♐︎
December—why, of course we grin And bear it—shiverin’ every minute, Yet warm from time the month rolls in Till it skites out with Christmas in it; And so, for all its coldest truths And chill, goose-pimpled imperfections, It wads our lank old socks with Youth’s Recollections.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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