A poem about the months of the year
Norman Kaye
does anyone know the all 12 months verses for the poem that includes
"April showers bring forth may flowers"?
Norman
George Dance
There's a famous poem about the months, usually called "The Months"
but originally titled "A Calendar," by Sara Coleridge (the daughter of
Samuel Coleridge), and published in 1834 in her /Pretty Lessons in
Verse for Good Children; with some Lessons in Latin in Easy Rhyme/.
But that line does not appear in it.
A Calendar
January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daises at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy damns.
June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hand with posies.
Hot july brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.
Warm september brings the fruit,
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasents,
Then to gather nuts is pleasent.
Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.
- Sara Coleridge
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/10195-Sara-Coleridge-The-Months
The earliest reference to "April showers bring forth may flowers" I
can find on the web is from a 1670 book called /English Proverbs./
http://www.answers.com/topic/april-showers-bring-forth-may-flowers
In 1557, Thomas Tusser had published a similar proverb in "A Hundred
Good
Points of Husbandry":
Sweet April showers
Do spring May flowers
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/46/messages/268.html
Around the same time (1557-60), the line appeared in an anonymous
ballad,
collected and published by Thomas Wright in 1860 in /"Songs and
ballads, with other short poems, chiefly of the reign of Philip and
Mary./
LXXVI.
The prymerose in the greene forest,
The vyolets, the grow gaye,
The dubbell dayses with the rest
So merryly deks the waye,
To moove my sprytes through fond delyghts,
Lyke pretty wons as the be.
With hy !
The swecte record, the nytyngale,
The leveret and the thrushe,
Which whyps and skyps, and wages there teles,
From every bank to busshe,
And chyrpyngly do pas the day,
Lyke pretty wons as the be.
With hy !
Have over the water to Floryda,
Farewell, gay Lundon, no we;
Throw long deles by land and sese,
I am brawght, I cannot tell howe,
To Plymwoorthe towne, in a thredbare gowne,
And mony never [a] dele.
With hy ! wunnot a wallet do well ?
When Aprell sylver showers so sweet
Can make May flowers to sprynge,
And every pretty bird prepars
Her wystlyng throte to synge,
The nyghtyngale in every dale
Then dothe her duty well.
With hy !
And as I walked towards poles,
I met a frend of myne
Who toke me by the hand and sayde
" Cum drynk a pynt of wyne ;
Wher yow shall here suche news, I fere,
As yow abrode wyll compell."
With hy !
" Have yow not hard of Floryda,
A coontre far be west?
Wher savage pepell planted are
By nature and by hest,
Who in the mold fynd glysterynge gold,
And yt for tryfels sell.
With hy !
Ye, all alonge the water syde,
Where yt dothe eb and flowe,
Are turkeyse found, and where also
Do perles in oysteres growe ;
And on the land do cedars stand,
Whose bewty do excell.
With hy ! tryksy trym, go tryksy, wunnot a wallet do well ?
http://www.archive.org/stream/songsballadswith00wrigrich/songsballadswith00wrigrich_djvu.txt
Norman Kaye
My good wife sends her thanks for all your hard work.
She thinks she may be mistaken about the April stanza although these things
(unfortunately) do get altered in the course of time.It takes someone such
as yourself to put us right. Thanks once again.
Norman
"George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:6e0eaa26-d2bc-471a...@t11g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
annettesw...@gmail.com
cris...@gmail.com
February dripping wet;
March wind ranges;
April changes;
Birds sing in tune
to flowers of May,
And sunny June
Brings longest day;
In scorched July
the storm-clouds fly,
Lightning-torn;
August bears corn,
September fruit;
In rough October
Earth must disrobe her;
Stars fall and shoot
In keen November;
And night is long
And cold is strong
In bleak December.
ellenros...@gmail.com
January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose sweet,
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hand with posies.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast.
Chill December brings the sleet,