LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Shelf ...X^n 5" 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE 
 
 YEARLY MOONS 
 
 B Y '/ . 
 
 JOSEPH H./ YOUNG, 
 
 S^ 
 
 Maecenas * * =^ := * * 
 
 Sunt quos curricnlo piilvereni Olympicum 
 Collegisse juvat, * =•= * * 
 
 ****:;: :•: * * 
 
 Quodsi me lyricis vatibus inseris, 
 Sublimi feriam sidera verticc. 
 
 HoRACK, Ode I., Book I. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA; 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 18 8 3. 
 
 MAR 17 1883 
 
 Copyright, 1883, by Joseph H. Young. 
 

 L'r 
 
1 
 
 THE YEARLY MOONS, 
 
.^fel 
 
 RARE FRIEND, AND MOST POLITE PATRON OP LETTERS, 
 
 WHO, TAKING MY MUSE KINDLY 
 
 BY THE HAND, PRESENTS HER, IN THE SPACIOUS ODEON OF HER SISTERS, 
 
 TO THE reader's ATTENTIVE AUDIENCE, 
 
 THESE SONNETS 
 
 are most CORDIALLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ^^^^S^~ 
 
JAInTUARY. 
 
 A dashing youth is he whose coursers fleet 
 Outrun the steeds of Phoebus' flying car. 
 His horses are the winds, his lash the sleet, 
 He rides the storra, and cometh from afar, — 
 The world where everlasting ages are. 
 But he is young, and beautiful his feet 
 Upon the mountains of the morn. We greet, 
 O happy Year and 'New. we greet thy face 
 
 And hail in thee fond Hope's eternal star. 
 Be thou propitious, and thy dwelling-place 
 
 For aye shall be our hearts, nor memory mar 
 Thy features fair with rue's regretful scar. — 
 But look, look there ! a shade — a spectre fast 
 Behind him rides. Alack ! my heart, it is the past. 
 
II. 
 FEBRUAEY. 
 
 The darkness deepens just before the day, 
 
 When night on night sweeps downward from the pole. 
 
 Then watchers weary for the morning pray; 
 And noisome dews exhale, as if tliey stole 
 From yawning sepulchres. Upon my soul, 
 
 O Winter, now at length thy shadows lay 
 
 As if the weeks would never wear away; 
 
 And dank and grewsome is thy feverous breath. 
 Hark ! Wailing bells — heavy and lioarse ; they toll, 
 
 Timing their measures to the march of death. 
 Be still, sad heart : the waves of grief that roll 
 Tremendous o'er thy sinking hopes, — their goal 
 
 Is Heaven's shining shore ; and they shall bear 
 
 Thy sorrow on their crest, and lay it safely there. 
 
III. 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 Ah, wild and wayward offspring of the Sun ! 
 First-born from his reunion with the sphere 
 That turns again to greet his kiss upon 
 
 The inconstant face which shuns him every year, 
 And every 3'ear repents 'mid the severe 
 Regrets and penances of winter dun, 
 Drear, dark, and desolate; — the frigid nun 
 Among her sister planets. Headstrong child, 
 
 Thou wouldst despoil the hopes that now appear 
 
 In greening blades and swelling buds beguiled 
 
 By thee, thou counterfeit, whose treacherous leer 
 
 Takes on a smile. For when subsides her fear. 
 
 And Life from long duress adventures forth — 
 
 Full in her face thy blast hurls havoc from the North. 
 
IV. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 O season, throned above the Pleiades, 
 
 That setting, weep afresh to see thee rise 
 
 Supremely regent o'er the rainy seas 
 Aerial which issue from their eyes; — 
 Thy robe of purple is the rainbow's dyes 
 
 All spangled with the fleck of golden bees 
 
 Early astir among the lilac trees. 
 
 Nor is she less a woman than a queen 
 
 Who changes with her shifting mind the skies; 
 
 So varying moods diversify the scene. 
 
 Or cold or warm or gay or full of sighs. 
 
 As now she, beaming, laughs or, frowning, cries; — 
 
 Eager to make and passionate to mar 
 
 The joy of Spring wherein she shines the morning star. 
 
V. 
 
 M A Y. 
 
 The apple-blossoms of the sweet month May 
 
 Upon the maiden Spring's uplifted brow 
 Fall in a bridal veil of balmy spray. 
 
 She seeks from Heaven annunciation now : 
 It is her wedding-day; and He whose vow 
 Forever with an everlasting " Yea" 
 Swears that the seed-time shall not pass away — 
 He is the bridegroom, — Faith and Nature's God. 
 
 happy bride, whom Love does thus endow 
 With bliss Deiiic, thrilling deep the sod 
 That man has lacerated with his plow. 
 And then thy joy inspires all nature; thou 
 Dost come rejoicing, with a choiring train 
 Of mated birds whose souses warble their love's refrain. 
 
VI. 
 
 JU¥E. 
 
 love, the month, the clay, the hour is here; 
 
 And where art thou ? Oh, come ! my couch is spread 
 Upon the immaculate bosom of the year 
 
 Throbbing with life whose current, rich and red. 
 Breaks in the blush of roses that appear 
 When heaven tells its secret in her ear. 
 
 And mine ? Ah, listen ! — roses for thy bed 
 Strewed thick and odorous, and lilies fair 
 
 Massed in a pillow for thy fairer head — 
 Thy own sweet breath and thy own lustrous hair 
 
 Shall shame them both. Oh, come ! through arbors green 
 
 And labyrinths of climbing eglantine — 
 Oh, come, my love! oh, haste! oh, fly to me! 
 In June I pant, I thirst, I faint, I die for thee. 
 
VII. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 Forbear, muse. I scarce can creep : the ground 
 Precipitous uprises with the hight 
 
 Of great Olympus into depths profound. 
 
 There sits The Thunderer. Sharp Ughtnings light 
 The eyes that, under old Egypta's night 
 
 Draping his brows, flash forked fire. The sound 
 
 Falling strikes heavily, and with a bound 
 
 Keverberating peals along the sky. 
 
 The ocean groans, rolling all ghastly white, 
 
 And men and beasts and birds together fly. 
 
 boy, beware that tree. Dread Heaven ! thy blight — 
 Thy thunder-blight has struck, and in the sight — 
 
 The sight of his fond eyes its glare expires. 
 
 His name was Ganymede, and love the death-bolt fires. 
 
VIII. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 The year is ripening; her girlhood's thrill 
 
 Is growing fast into a matron's care. 
 In clustering grapes the blood begins to fill, — 
 The smell of blooming corn-fields loads the air 
 With richness. Hear, Heaven, a mother's prayer, 
 And gently lead her anxious feet until 
 In Autumn's perfect joy thy blessed will 
 Be done. She hears; and Virgo intervenes, 
 
 Blending her smile with Sol's too fervid glare. 
 Severely chaste she tempers him, and screens 
 The panting Earth. But do thou still beware 
 The dog-star's reign. Look skyward ! Sirius there 
 ISTow rages while he bays the rising moon — 
 The harvest moon, as soft as eve and fair as noon. 
 
IX. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Pomona, goddess of the year, thy horn 
 
 Is poured into the Lap of Autumn crowned 
 The Queen of queens, laughhig them all to scorn, 
 Such peace and joy within her realm abound. 
 Knee-deep the wallowing wheel goes gaily round, 
 Crushing the juicy pulp. The full-ripe corn. 
 Of stalk and husk and silken tassel shorn. 
 Glitters in golden heaps that frequent lie. 
 
 The shining ore of mines above the ground, — 
 Bringing to pass the early prophecy 
 
 Of yellow daiFodils. The love profound 
 Of ^N'ature's heart in man and brute is wound 
 In grateful ties about thine own, God 
 Incarnate, first and last, in the immortal clod. 
 
X. 
 
 OCTOBER. . 
 
 I stood alone, and Memory came near. 
 
 Pensive she came, borne on the dreamy wings 
 Of thoughts that fill the Autumn of the year, 
 When Silence lays her hand upon the strings 
 Of ]^ature's harp, where Summer's echoings 
 Linger . through ripe September. — Hark! The sere 
 And falling leaf. O death ! and art thou here 
 Concealed amid the shadows? — Pushino; back 
 
 Untimely Winter, warm October swings 
 The closing portals of the Zodiac 
 
 Open again. The autumnal splendor flings 
 On passing Summer and her precious things 
 A pall of glory. Thus, oh thus, my heart, 
 Will love transfigure death when life and thou do part ? 
 
XI. 
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Pilgrim of time, thy feet approach a laud 
 
 AVhere all is desert — bleak and mournful shore, 
 
 Where leafless trees for skeletons upstand, 
 
 And dismal winds for wailing ghosts deplore; 
 The shore of a dead sea, encrusted o'er 
 
 With frozen dews. Ah, me ! the barren strand 
 
 Of age awaits us all, and the command. 
 
 Dreadful and stern, " Go forw^ard." On that brink, 
 O Thou, in whom our Father we adore. 
 
 Divide the waters deathly cold that shrink 
 
 The soul with fear. Yet now we live. And more 
 Wouldst thou ? Look back : the past was once before. 
 
 The cup within thy hand is Heaven's choice; 
 
 This, this alone, is sure; oh, drink it and rejoice. 
 
XII. 
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 An old man, bent with age and reft of hope, 
 
 Plods heavily along a drifting road. 
 'Tis night. The tempest howls. In one fell swope 
 
 All ills together join to overload 
 
 The steps whose youth the whirlwind did forebode, — 
 Harvest of stormy seed. Look! on the slope 
 Verging the grave he totters. Cease to cope, 
 O single handed, with almighty Fate. — 
 
 Alas! the old man reaps but that he sowed. 
 Resign thee wdiose repentance comes too late. 
 
 When he was young, from out their cold abode 
 
 And cavernous, he loosed the winds that showed 
 'No mercy to the traveller whose woes 
 E'ow overtake and leave him lost in his own snows. 
 
XIII. 
 
 FINALE. 
 
 Mortal, so fine and fragile is that tliread 
 
 Whereon thy life suspended hangs, no eye 
 But One whose vision keen hath numbered 
 
 The sands of shores whose leagues unmeasured lie 
 
 Hath seen it; yet a whole eternity 
 Inefifable, in one quick moment dread. 
 Along its quivering tension may be sped. 
 Infinite soul, conjoined with finite clay. 
 
 Thou art a star alight of God most High, 
 His life thy being. Passing swift away 
 
 The dust consumes, but thou shalt shine for aye; 
 
 As light of stars accounted dead — shalt fly 
 On, on, and ever on throughout the vast 
 Of thought — forever present and forever past. 
 
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