The Austral Months

January     The first fair month! In singing Summers sphere     She glows, the eldest daughter of the year.     All light, all warmth, all passion, breaths of myrrh,     And subtle hints of rose-lands, come with her.     She is the warm, live month of lustre she     Makes glad the land and lulls the strong, sad sea.     The highest hope comes with her. In her face     Of pure, clear colour lives exalted grace;     Her speech is beauty, and her radiant eyes     Are eloquent with splendid prophecies. February     The bright-haired, blue-eyed last of Summer. Lo,     Her clear song lives in all the winds that blow;     The upland torrent and the lowland rill,     The stream of valley and the spring of hill,     The pools that slumber and the brooks that run     Where dense the leaves are, green the light of sun,     Take all her grace of voice and colour. She,     With rich warm vine-blood splashed from heel to knee,     Comes radiant through the yellow woodlands. Far     And near her sweet gifts shine like star by star.     She is the true Demeter. Life of root     Glows under her in gardens flushed with fruit;     She fills the fields with strength and passion makes     A fire of lustre on the lawn-ringed lakes;     Her beauty awes the great wild sea; the height     Of grey magnificence takes strange delight     And softens at her presence, at the dear     Sweet face whose memory beams through all the year. March     Clear upland voices, full of wind and stream,     Greet March, the sister of the flying beam     And speedy shadow. She, with rainbow crowned,     Lives in a sphere of songs of mazy sound.     The hymn of waters and the gales high tone,     With anthems from the thunders mountain throne,     Are with her ever. This, behold, is she     Who draws its great cry from the strong, sad sea;     She is the month of majesty. Her force     Is power that moves along a stately course,     Within the lines of order, like no wild     And lawless strength of winters fiercest child.     About her are the wind-whipped torrents; far     Above her gleams and flies the stormy star,     And round her, through the highlands and their rocks,     Rings loud the grand speech from the equinox. April     The darling of Australias Autumn now     Down dewy dells the strong, swift torrents flow!     This is the month of singing waters here     A tender radiance fills the Southern year;     No bitter winter sets on herb and root,     Within these gracious glades, a frosty foot;     The spears of sleet, the arrows of the hail,     Are here unknown. But down the dark green dale     Of moss and myrtle, and the herby streams,     This April wanders in a home of dreams;     Her flower-soft name makes language falter. All     Her paths are soft and cool, and runnels fall     In music round her; and the woodlands sing     For evermore, with voice of wind and wing,     Because this is the month of beauty this     The crowning grace of all the grace that is. May     Now sings a cool, bland wind, where falls and flows     The runnel by the grave of last years rose;     Now, underneath the strong perennial leaves,     The first slow voice of wintering torrent grieves.     Now in a light like English Augusts day,     Is seen the fair, sweet, chastened face of May;     She is the daughter of the year who stands     With Autumns last rich offerings in her hands;     Behind her gleams the ghost of Aprils noon,     Before her is the far, faint dawn of June;     She lingers where the dells and dewy leas     Catch stormy sayings from the great bold seas;     Her nightly raiment is the misty fold     That zones her round with moonlight-coloured gold;     And in the day she sheds, from shining wings,     A tender heat that keeps the life in things. June     Not like that month when, in imperial space,     The high, strong sun stares at the white worlds face;     Not like that haughty daughter of the year     Who moves, a splendour, in a splendid sphere;     But rather like a nymph of afternoon,     With cool, soft sunshine, comes Australian June.     She is the calm, sweet lady, from whose lips     No breath of living passion ever slips;     The wind that on her virgin forehead blows     Was born too late to speak of last years rose;     She never saw a blossom, but her eyes     Of tender beauty see blue, gracious skies;     She loves the mosses, and her feet have been     In woodlands where the leaves are always green;     Her days pass on with sea-songs, and her nights     Shine, full of stars, on lands of frosty lights. July     High travelling winds, filled with the strong storms soul,     Are here, with dark, strange sayings from the Pole;     Now is the time when every great cave rings     With sharp, clear echoes caught from mountain springs;     This is the season when all torrents run     Beneath no bright, glad beauty of the sun.     Here, where the trace of last years green is lost,     Are haughty gales, and lordships of the frost.     Far down, by fields forlorn and forelands bleak,     Are wings that fly not, birds that never speak;     But in the deep hearts of the glens, unseen,     Stand grave, mute forests of eternal green;     And here the lady, born in wind and rain,     Comes oft to moan and clap her palms with pain.     This is our wild-faced July, in whose breast     Is never faultless light or perfect rest. August     Across the range, by every scarred black fell,     Strong Winter blows his horn of wild farewell;     And in the glens, where yet there moves no wing,     A slow, sweet voice is singing of the Spring.     Yea, where the bright, quick woodland torrents run,     A music trembles under rain and sun.     The lips that breathe it are the lips of her     At whose dear touch the wan worlds pulses stir     The nymph who sets the bow of promise high     And fills with warm life-light the bleak grey sky.     She is the fair-haired August. Ere she leaves     She brings the woodbine blossom round the eaves;     And where the bitter barbs of frost have been     She makes a beauty with her gold and green;     And, while a sea-song floats from bay and beach,     She sheds a mist of blossoms on the peach. September October     Where fountains sing and many waters meet,     October comes with blossom-trammelled feet.     She sheds green glory by the wayside rills     And clothes with grace the haughty-featured hills.     This is the queen of all the year. She brings     The pure chief beauty of our southern springs.     Fair lady of the yellow hair! Her breath     Starts flowers to life, and shames the storm to death;     Through tender nights and days of generous sun     By prospering woods her clear strong torrents run;     In far deep forests, where all life is mute,     Of leaf and bough she makes a touching lute.     Her life is lovely. Stream, and wind, and bird     Have seen her face her marvellous voice have heard;     And, in strange tracts of wildwood, all day long,     They tell the story in surpassing song. November     Now beats the first warm pulse of Summer now     There shines great glory on the mountains brow.     The face of heaven in the western sky,     When falls the sun, is filled with Deity!     And while the first light floods the lake and lea,     The morning makes a marvel of the sea;     The strong leaves sing; and in the deep green zones     Of rock-bound glens the streams have many tones;     And where the evening-coloured waters pass,     Now glides November down fair falls of grass.     She is the wonder with the golden wings,     Who lays one hand in Summers one in Springs;     About her hair a sunset radiance glows;     Her mouth is sister of the dewy rose;     And all the beauty of the pure blue skies     Has lent its lustre to her soft bright eyes. December     The month whose face is holiness! She brings     With her the glory of majestic things.     What words of light, what high resplendent phrase     Have I for all the lustre of her days?     She comes, and carries in her shining sphere     August traditions of the worlds great year;     The noble tale which lifts the human race     Has made a morning of her sacred face.     Now in the emerald home of flower and wing     Clear summer streams their sweet hosannas sing;     The winds are full of anthems, and a lute     Speaks in the listening hills when night is mute     And through dim tracks where talks the royal tree     There floats a grand hymn from the mighty sea;     And where the grey, grave, pondering mountains stand     High music lives the place is holy land!