The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind.

The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering
Found it seems the halcyon morn
To hoar February born.

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;

June is a migraine above the eyes,
Strict auras and yellow blots,
green screen and tunnel vision,
Slow ripples of otherworldliness.

And some of songs in July bowers
And all of love; and so this tree
Oh that such our death may be!
Died in sleep and felt no pain
To live in happier form again:

Yes - a pond
that lets off its mist
on clear afternoons of August, in that valley
to which many have come, for their reasons.

And drop when gentle airs come by
That fan the blue September sky
While children come with cries of glee
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass
At the foot of the apple-tree.

The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves
And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

The rain is falling where they lie but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

In a drear-nighted December
Too happy happy tree
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity: