[ { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: March", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "Month which the warring ancients strangely styled", "The month of war,--as if in their fierce ways", "Were any month of peace!--in thy rough days", "I find no war in Nature, though the wild", "Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled", "As feet of writhing trees. The violets raise", "Their heads without affright, without amaze,", "And sleep through all the din, as sleeps a child.", "And he who watches well may well discern", "Sweet expectation in each living thing.", "Like pregnant mother the sweet earth doth yearn;", "In secret joy makes ready for the spring;", "And hidden, sacred, in her breast doth bear", "Annunciation lilies for the year." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Death", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "My body, eh? Friend Death, how now?", "Why all this tedious pomp of writ?", "Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow", "For half a century bit by bit.", "", "In faith thou knowest more to-day", "Than I do, where it can be found!", "This shrivelled lump of suffering clay,", "To which I am now chained and bound,", "", "Has not of kith or kin a trace", "To the good body once I bore;", "Look at this shrunken, ghastly face:", "Didst ever see that face before?", "", "Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;", "Thy only fault thy lagging gait,", "Mistaken pity in thy heart", "For timorous ones that bid thee wait.", "", "Do quickly all thou hast to do,", "Nor I nor mine will hindrance make;", "I shall be free when thou art through;", "I grudge thee nought that thou must take!", "", "Stay! I have lied; I grudge thee one,", "Yes, two I grudge thee at this last,--", "Two members which have faithful done", "My will and bidding in the past.", "", "I grudge thee this right hand of mine;", "I grudge thee this quick-beating heart;", "They never gave me coward sign,", "Nor played me once the traitor's part.", "", "I see now why in olden days", "Men in barbaric love or hate", "Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,", "Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:", "", "The symbol, sign and instrument", "Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife,", "Of fires in which are poured and spent", "Their all of love, their all of life.", "", "O feeble, mighty human hand!", "O fragile, dauntless human heart!", "The universe holds nothing planned", "With such sublime, transcendent art!", "", "Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine", "Poor little hand, so feeble now;", "Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,", "Its veins so pallid and so slow --", "", "Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;", "I shall be free when thou art through.", "Take all there is -- take hand and heart;", "There must be somewhere work to do." ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "Freedom", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he", "Whose father's father through long lives have reigned", "O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained.", "Though from his youth to age he roam as free", "As winds, he dreams not freedom's ecstacy.", "But he whose birth was in a nation chained", "For centuries; where every breath was drained", "From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be", "Such thing as freedom,--he beholds the light", "Burst, dazzling; though the glory blind his sight", "He knows the joy. Fools laugh because he reels", "And weilds confusedly his infant will;", "The wise man watching with a heart that feels", "Says: \"Cure for freedom's harms is freedom still.\"" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Fir-Tree and the Brook", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "The Fir-Tree looked on stars, but loved the Brook!", "\"O silver-voiced! if thou wouldst wait,", "My love can bravely woo.\" All smiles forsook", "The brook's white face. \"Too late!", "Too late! I go to wed the sea.", "I know not if my love would curse or bless thee.", "I may not, dare not, tarry to caress thee,", "Oh, do not follow me!", "", "The Fir-Tree moaned and moaned till spring;", "Then laughed in manic joy to feel", "Early one day, the woodsmen of the King", "Sign him with a sign of burning steel,", "The first to fall. \"Now flee", "Thy swiftest, Brook! Thy love may curse or bless me,", "I care not, if but once thou dost caress me,", "O Brook, I follow thee!", "", "All torn and bruised with mark of adze and chain,", "Hurled down the dizzy slide of sand,", "Tossed by great waves in ecstsy of pain,", "And rudely thrown at last to land,", "The Fir-Tree heard: \"Oh, see", "With what fierce love it is I must caress thee!", "I warned thee I might curse, and never bless thee,", "Why didst thou follow me?", "", "All stately set with spar and brace and rope,", "The Fir-Tree stood and sailed and sailed.", "In wildest storm when all the ship lost hope,", "The Fir-Tree never shook nor quailed,", "Nor ceased from saying, \"Free", "Art thou, O Brook! But once thou hast caressed me;", "For life, for death, thy love has cursed or blessed me;", "Behold, I follow thee!\"", "", "Lost in a night, and no man left to tell,", "Crushed in the giant iceberg's play,", "The ship went down without a song, a knell.", "Still drifts the Fir-Tree night and day,", "Still moans along the sea", "A voice: \"O Fir-Tree! thus must I possess thee;", "Eternally, brave love, will I caress thee,", "Dead for the love of me!\"" ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: July", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "Some flowers are withered and some joys have died;", "The garden reeks with an East Indian scent", "From beds where gillyflowers stand weak and spent;", "The white heat pales the skies from side to side;", "But in still lakes and rivers, cool, content,", "Like starry blooms on a new firmament,", "White lilies float and regally abide.", "In vain the cruel skies their hot rays shed;", "The lily does not feel their brazen glare.", "In vain the pallid clouds refuse to share", "Their dews, the lily feels no thirst, no dread.", "Unharmed she lifts her queenly face and head;", "She drinks of living waters and keeps fair." ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: June", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "O month whose promise and fulfilment blend,", "And burst in one! it seems the earth can store", "In all her roomy house no treasure more;", "Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend", "On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end.", "And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before", "It hath made ready at its hidden core", "Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend", "Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee", "Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth?", "No room is left for deeper ecstacy?", "Watch well if seeds grow strong, to scatter free", "Germs for thy future summers on the earth.", "A joy which is but joy soon comes to dearth." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: May", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "O Month when they who love must love and wed!", "Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,", "And seek to tell the memories he had brought", "From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?", "I know not if the rosy showers shed", "From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought", "In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught", "The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read", "Thee best who in the ancient time did say", "Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:", "No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day", "So subtly sweet as memories which unfold", "In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,", "To sun themselves once more before they die." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Dream", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens,--", "Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift,--", "And cried: \"O God, where art Thou?\" I left one", "On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift.\"", "", "I was so dead I wondered at no thing,--", "Not even that the angels slowly turned", "Their faces, speechless, as I hurried by", "(Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned);", "", "Nor, at the first, that I could not find God,", "Because the heavens stretched endlessly like space.", "At last a terror siezed my very soul;", "I seemed alone in all the crowded place.", "", "Then, sudden, one compassionate cried out,", "Though like the rest his face from me he turned,", "As I were one no angel might regard", "(Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned):", "", "\"No moew in heaven than earth will he find God", "Who does not know his loving mercy swift", "But waits the moment consummate and ripe,", "Each burden, from each human soul to lift.\"", "", "Though I was dead, I died again for shame;", "Lonely, to flee from heaven again I turned;", "The ranks of angels looked away from me", "(Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned)." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: November", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "This is the treacherous month when autumn days", "With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.", "Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts", "Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze", "Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,", "And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,", "The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts", "Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays", "Willidly shine upon and slowly melt,", "Too late to bid the violet live again.", "The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;", "Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.", "What joy sufficient hath November felt?", "What profit from the violet's day of pain?" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: April", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "No days such honored days as these! While yet", "Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide", "For some fair thing which should forever bide", "On earth, her beauteous memory to set", "In fitting frame that no age could forget,", "Her name in lovely April's name did hide,", "And leave it there, eternally allied", "To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.", "And when fair Aphrodite passed from earth,", "Her shrines forgotten and her feasts of mirth,", "A holier symbol still in seal and sign,", "Sweet April took, of kingdom most divine,", "When Christ ascended, in the time of birth", "Of spring anemones, in Palestine." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Calendar of Sonnets: January", "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson", "lines": [ "O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,", "What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn", "Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn", "Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire", "The streams than under ice. June could not hire", "Her roses to forego the strength they learn", "In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn", "The bridges thou dost lay where men desire", "In vain to build.", "O Heart, when Love's sun goes", "To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,", "Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.", "Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.", "Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,", "The winter is the winter's own release." ], "linecount": "15" } ]