O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped! The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped; And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped The purple grape,--last thing to ripen, late By very reason of its precious cost. O Heart, remember, vintages are lost If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait. Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate, Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost! October The month of carnival of all the year, When Nature lets the wild earth go its way And spend whole seasons on a single day. The spring-time holds her white and purple dear; October, lavish, flaunts them far and near; The summer charily her reds doth lay Like jewels on her costliest array; October, scornful, burns them on a bier. The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew, Or Empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line, October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue, Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine! November 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 Will idly 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? December The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed: Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, The brook its frozen architecture makes, And under bridges white its swift way takes. Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed Might linger on the road; or one who deemed His message hostile gently for their sakes Who listened might reveal it by degrees. We gird against the cold of winter wind Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep, In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease, And every shortening day, as shadows creep O'er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find. End of Project Gutenberg's A Calendar of Sonnets, by Helen Hunt Jackson