Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)

November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.

The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose.

How sweet I roam’d from field to field, And tasted all the summer’s pride, Till I the prince of love beheld, Who in the sunny beams did glide!

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

With thee conversing I forget all time, All seasons, and their change; all please alike. Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove afield; and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc’d fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the checkered shade. And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday.

While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before, Oft list’ning how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumb’ring morn.

No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savor all the winter long.

Then comes in the sweet o’ the year.

A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.

How like a winter hath my absence been.

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green corn-field did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.

How many things by season season’d are To their right praise and true perfection!

When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson’s saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian’s nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.