False February

NOT seldom, whilst the Winter yet is king,

Whilst yet the meads are mute and boughs are bare,

A stirring in the February air

There comes, as with a faint foreshadowing,

A passing prophecy of far-off Spring

And distant days, when all the world shall wear

The lovely liveries of Summer fair,

That sets our wintry thought upon the wing.

Well though we know the thing's a Winter's trick,

To hold the soul with expectation sick,

And he will soon resume his iron reign,

Yet our fond hearts alone with hope in vain

Swell not; for hark, the swallows in the eaves

Rejoice as though the world were lush with leaves.

John Payne

The Foredawn Hour

I

BETWEEN the night-end and the break of day

An hour there is that from the thither shore

Of the dark river its enchantments frore*          [intensely cold]

And fearful borrows, when each churchyard clay

Breathes out its chills, when life unto a stay

Seems come and pauses, shuddering, at Death's door,

That stands ajar; of all the twenty-four

Sternest and most of horror and affray*.          [alarm; fright]

Here, for arraignment, all its sour and sweet,

Its crimes, its wrongs, its errors, its tears shed,

(For sorrows here for sins imputed are)

The piteous Past unto Thought's judgment-bar

Brings up; and here, where night and morning meet,

The sea of memory gives up its dead.

II

Here, all alone, the soul before the ark

(That ark, whereto there is no mercy-seat)

Of conscience stands and to the iron beat

Of time, that all the wasted years doth mark

And all the days in vain bygone, must hark,

Mourning for done and undone, deeds unmeet

And words ill-spoken; whilst, with faltering feet,

The night slopes dawnward through the shallowing dark.

Set, awful hour, when, in the grave-cold air,

The moments fall like ages, when Life's breath

Halts and the world lies blank and stark and bare

Before Thought's eyes, when love and life and light

For ever sunken seem in seas of night

And the soul pauses in the ports of Death.

III

Who to this dread diurnal judgment-hour,

This everyday rehearsal-time of death,

When life stands still and cold is Nature's breath,

When all our sins bygone like mountains tower

Before the thought and with its salving power,

Afar the blessed daylight tarrieth--

Who is't can look with hope and cheer and faith?

Who but before its cold approach must cower?

Then for a God, with blind hand, round about

Casting, to succour it and finding none,

The soul into the darkness crieth out

For some twin soul, to share its hope and doubt,

And meeting but the void, till night be done,

Longeth and trembleth for the assaining* sun.          [blessing; healing]

IV

Oft, in this darkling hour of doubt and dread,

The Past, with all its ghosts, revisits me,

Its wraiths of hope and joy and ecstacy:

I feel the windy presence of the dead

Stir in my hair and hear their spirit-tread,

As dry leaves falling, nothing though I see:

Again for my sad sense they live and be

And stir and rustle round my bed.

Oh spirits of my dead, that may not rest,

But needs must harbour where you loved of yore,

Still, by the fetters of the grave opprest,

Seeking to burst the bonds of nothingness,

How shall I do to ease you of your stress?

How shall I win to look on you once more?

John Payne

January

THIS is the bitter birth-month of the year.

The sun looms large against the leaden sky,

Rayless and red, as 'twere a giant's eye,

That through the mists of death abroad doth peer:

The fettered earth is dumb for frosty cheer,

Veiling its face to let the blast go by.

Who said, "Spring cometh"? Out upon the lie!

Spring's dead and buried: January's here.

Shut to the door; heap logs upon the fire.

If in your heart there harbour yet some heat,

Some sense of flowers and light and Summer-sweet,

In some half-fabulous dream of days foregone

Remembered, feed withal hope's funeral pyre,

So you may live to look upon the dawn.

John Payne

February

HOW long, o Lord, how long the Winter's woes?

Is it to purge the world of sin and stain

That in its winding-sheet it stands again

For penance, pining in the shrouded snows?

Methinks, I do remember of the rose

To have heard fable in some far domain

Of old fantastic dreams and fancies vain;

But what in sooth it was, God only knows!

Was ever aught but Winter in the lands?

Was ever snow-time past and Springtime come,

To bless the brown earth with her flowerful hands?

Well nigh the cuckoo's call, the wild bee's hum

Have we forgot. Yet, through the chill snow-cope,

The kindly crocus blooms and bids us hope.

John Payne

March

MARCH comes at last, the labouring lands to free.

Rude blusterer, with thy cloud-compelling blast,

The pining plains from cark* of Winter past          [burden]

That clear'st and carpetest each bush and tree

With daffodil and wood-anemone,

A voice from the illimitable Vast

Of dreams thou art, the tale that doth forecast

Of hope yet live and happiness to be.

And hark, the robin fluting on the bough

The rough breeze tangling on his tender breast

The ruddy plumes! Yet sings he, unopprest,

The awakening year, the blessed burgeoning

In wood and weald, the Then becoming Now

And all the pleasant presage of the Spring.

John Payne

April

SWEET April, with thy mingling tears and smiles,

Dear maid-child of the changing months that art,

What wit so blunt, what breast with sorrow's smart

So sore but must confess thy tender wiles?

What woes but thy capricious charm beguiles?

At thy sweet sight, the winter-thoughts depart

And with glad lips men say and gleeful heart,

"Belike we yet shall greet the Golden Isles."

Pale as thy primrose, as thy violets sweet,

Thy varying stint thou fill'st of dainty days;

Yet, though thy bright prime passeth, still shall praise

And blessing follow on thy flitting feet

Nor Summer's sheen thy memory make less dear,

That bring'st the first-fruits of the flowering year.

John Payne

May

THE wild bird carolled all the April night,

Among the leafing limes, as who should say,

"Lovers, have heed; here cometh in your May,

When you shall walk in woods and heart's delight

Have in the fresh-flowered fields and spring's sweet sight!"

And truly, with the breaking of the day,

Came the glad month and all the world was gay

With lilac-breath and blossoms red and white.

Oh moon of love, how shall the snowtide do

To wind the world again with winter-death,

Whilst in our hearts the thought of thee is blent

With memories more sweet than honey-dew

Of all thy nights and days of ravishment,

Thy birds, thy cowslips, and thy hawthorn's breath?

John Payne

June

THE empress of the year, the meadows' queen,

Back from the East, with all her goodly train,

Is come, to glorify the world again

With length of light and middle Summer-Sheen.

In every plot, upon her throne of green,

Bright blooms the rose; with birds and blossom-rain

And perfume ecstacied are wood and plain

And Winter is as if it ne'er had been.

Oh June, liege-lady of the flowering prime,

Now that thrush, finch, lark, linnet, ousel, wren

Thy praises pipe, to the Iranian bard

How shall we harken, who, the highwaymen

Autumn and Winter, warns us, follow hard

On thy fair feet and bide their baleful time?

John Payne

July

THE meadows slumber in the golden shine;

Full-mirrored in the river's glass serene,

Stirless, the blue sky sleeps; knee-deep in green,

Nigh o'er-content for grazing are the kine.

The russet hops hang ripening on the bine;

The birds are mute; no clouds there are between

The slumbering lands to come and the sun's sheen;

The day is drowsed with Summer's 'wildering wine.

Peace over all is writ: fought is the fight;

From Winter for the nonce the field is won

And the tired earth can slumber in the sun

And dream her summer-dreams of still increase;

Whil'st, as the long rays lengthen to the night,

The breeze o'er all the landscape murmurs "Peace!"

John Payne

August

AUGUST, thou monarch of the mellow noon,

That with thy sceptre smit'st the teeming plain

And gladd'nest all the world with golden grain,

How oft have I, beneath thy harvest moon,

Harkened the cushat's* soft insistent croon,          [ringdove]

As to the night she told her soul in pain,

Or heard the corn-crake to his mate complain,

When all things slept, beneath the sun aswoon!

The world with sun and sheen is overfed

And the faint heart, its need once done away,

Soon waxes weary of the summer-day

And the sun blazing in the blue o'erhead,

"Would God that it were night!" is apt to say

And "Would the summer-heats were oversped!"

John Payne

September

HOW is the world of Summer's splendours shorn!

The rose has had its day; from weald and wold

Past is the blossom-pomp, the harvest-gold;

The fields are orphaned of the ripened corn.

The meads, of their lush livery forlorn,

Lie bare and cheerless; Summer's tale is told

And Autumn reigns; the world is waxing old,

Its youth forspent in Plenty's heaped-up horn.

Yet, though the leaves, September, sere and brown

Show on thy time-awearied trees, in sign

Of life burned low, retreating to the root,

With jewels rich and rare, whose like no mine

On earth might yield, bound are thy brows for crown,

Purple and gold and red, of ripening fruit.

John Payne

October

OCTOBER, May of the descending days,

Mid-Spring of Autumn, on the shortening stair

Of the year's eld abiding still and fair,

A pause of peace, when all the world at gaze,

'Neath the mild mirage of thy sun-filled haze,

Chewing the cud of Summer's sweets that were,

Lingers, unmindful of the Winter's care,

Yet in thy russet woods and leaf-strewn ways;

Sweet was the Summer, sweeter yet the Spring;

But in these mist-attempered* noons of thine,          [mild]

Hung with the clustering jewels of the vine,

And in thy ruddock's* clear, contented lay,          [robin]

A charm of solace is, that in no thing

To Summer-suns may yield or blossoms gay.

John Payne

November

[Ed. Note: A "frontal" is the decorated front of a tomb; the last line is from the inscription over the gate of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy, Canto III.]

THE tale of wake is told; the stage is bare,

The curtain falls upon the ended play;

November's fogs arise, to hide away

The withered wrack* of that which was so fair:          [ruin]

Summer is gone to be with things that were.

The sun is fallen from his ancient sway;

The night primaeval trenches* on the day:          [encroaches] upon

Without, the Winter waits upon the stair.

Stern herald of the wintry wrath to come,

The mist-month treads upon October's feet,

Muting the small birds' songs, the insects' hum,

And all involving in its winding-sheet,

'Graves on the frontal of the failing year,

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"

John Payne

December

[Ed. Note: A "vaunt-courier" is one sent in advance to prepare the way for another. --Nelson]

THE roofs are dreary with the drifted rime

And in the air a stillness as of death

Th'approach of some portentousness foresaith.

December comes, the tyrant of the time,

Vaunt-courier of the cold hybernal* clime.          [northern]

Mute is the world for misery; no breath

Nor stir of sound there is, that welcometh

The coming of the Winter's woeful prime.

"Alack! Was ever such a thing as Spring?"

We say, hand-holding to the hearths of Yule.

"Did ever roses blow* or throstles sing?"          [bloom]

And in our ears the wild blast shrilleth, "Fool,

That, in this world of ruin and decay,

Thy heart's hopes buildest on the Summer day!"

John Payne