Part 4
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Dry August and warm Doth harvest no harm.
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Put in the sickles and reap, For the morning of harvest is red, And the long, large ranks of the corn, Coloured and clothed as the morn, Stand thick in the fields and deep, For them that faint to be fed.
_Swinburne._
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Summer is purple, and drowsed with repletion.
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Now yellow harvests wave on every field, Now bending boughs the hoary chestnut yield, Now loaded trees resign their annual store, And on the ground the mellow fruitage pour.
_Beattie._ (_From_ "_Virgil_.")
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AUGUST 16TH. (_St. Roche's Day._)
Formerly celebrated in England as a general Harvest Home.
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Good huswives in summer will save their own seeds Against the next year, as occasion needs; One seed for another to make an exchange, With fellowly neighbourhood seemeth not strange.
_Tusser._
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On one side is a field of drooping oats, Through which the poppies show their scarlet coats.
_Keats._
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AUGUST 24TH. (_St. Bartholomew's Day._)
If St. Bartholomew's Day be misty, the morning beginning with a hoar frost, then cold weather will soon ensue, and a sharp winter attended with many biting frosts.
_Thomas Passenger._
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St. Bartlemy's mantle wipes dry All the tears that St. Swithun can cry.
_Portugal._
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...Happy Britannia!... Rich is thy soil, and merciful thy clime; Thy streams unfailing in the Summer's drought; Unmatch'd thy guardian oaks; thy vallies float With golden waves; and on thy mountains flocks Bleat numberless; while roving round their sides, Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves. Beneath thy meadows glow, and rise unquell'd Against the mower's scythe.
_Thomson._
SEPTEMBER
Ancient Cornish name: Miz-guerda gala, white straw month.
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Jewel for the month: Chrysolite. Antidote to madness.
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If the woodcock had but the partridge's thigh, He'd be the best bird that ever did fly. If the partridge had but the woodcock's breast, He'd be the best bird that ever was dress'd.
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HARVEST HWOME.
The ground is clear. There's nar a ear O' stannen corn a-left out now, Vor win' to blow or rain to drow; 'Tis all up seafe in barn or mow. Here's health to them that plough'd an' zow'd; Here's health to them that reap'd an' mow'd, An' them that had to pitch an' lwoad, Or tip the rick at Harvest Hwome. The happy zight,--the merry night; The men's delight,--the Harvest Hwome.
_W. Barnes._
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We have ploughed, we have sowed, We have reaped, we have mowed, We have brought home every load, Hip, hip, hip, Harvest Home.
_Gloucester._
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HARVEST TOAST.
Here's a health to the barley mow, Here's a health to the man who very well can Both harrow and plough and sow. When it is well sown, See it is well mown, Both raked and gravell'd clean, And a barn to lay it in, Here's a health to the man who very well can Both thrash and fan it clean.
_Suffolk._
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Tramping after grouse or partridge through the soft September air, Both my pockets stuffed with cartridge, and my heart devoid of care.
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September blow soft. Till the fruit's in the loft.
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OF GARDENS.
In September come grapes, apples, poppies of all colours, peaches, melocotones (yellow peaches), nectarines, cornelians, wardens, quinces.
_Bacon._
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Spring was o'er happy and knew not the reason, And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended; But this is the harvest and the garnering season, And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended.
_W. Morris._
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A bloom upon the apple tree when the apples are ripe Is a sure termination to somebody's life.
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September dries up wells or breaks down bridges.
_Portugal._
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Many haws, many sloes, many cold toes.
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When September thirteenth falls on a Friday, the Autumn will be dry and sunny.
_France._
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September fifteenth is said to be fine in six years out of seven.
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Onion skin very thin, Mild winter coming in; Onion skin thick and tough, Coming winter cold and rough.
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Set strawberries, wife, I love them for life.
_Tusser._
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The barberry, respis, and gooseberry too, Look now to be planted as other things do: The gooseberry, respis, and roses all three, With strawberries under them trimly agree.
_Tusser._
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Wild with the winds of September Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.
_Longfellow._
That mellow season of the year When the hot sun singes the yellow leaves Till they be gold, and with a broader sphere The moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves.
_Hood._
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When the falling waters utter Something mournful on their way, And departing swallows flutter, Taking leave of bank and brae; When the chaffinch idly sitteth With her mate upon the sheaves, And the wistful robin flitteth Over beds of yellow leaves; When the clouds like ghosts that ponder Evil fate, float by and frown, And the listless wind doth wander Up and down, up and down:
Through the fields and fallows wending, It is sad to walk alone.
_Jean Ingelow._
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St. Matthew. (_September 21st._) St. Matthee shut up the bee.
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The flush of the landscape is o'er, The brown leaves are shed on the way, The dye of the lone mountain-flower Grows wan and betokens decay.
All silent the song of the thrush, Bewilder'd she cowers in the dale; The blackbird sits lone on the bush-- The fall of the leaf they bewail.
_Hogg._
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Summer is gone on swallow's wings, And earth has buried all her flowers; No more the lark, the linnet sings, But silence sits in faded bowers. There is a shadow on the plain Of Winter, ere he comes again.
_Hood._
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The feathers of the willow Are half of them grown yellow Above the swelling stream; And ragged are the bushes, And rusty now the rushes, And wild the clouded gleam. The thistle now is older, His stalk begins to moulder, His head is white as snow; The branches all are barer, The linnet's song is rarer, The robin pipeth now.
_Dixon._
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Nothing stirs the sunny silence, Save the drowsy humming of the bees Round the rich, ripe peaches on the wall, And the south wind sighing in the trees, And the dead leaves rustling as they fall: While the swallows, one by one, are gathering, All impatient to be on the wing, And to wander from us, seeking Their beloved Spring.
_Adelaide Procter._
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THE GARDEN.
What wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head. The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine. The nectarine, and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach. Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
_Andrew Marvell._
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ST. MICHAEL'S DAY. (_September 29th._)
In the Sarum Missal St. Michael is invoked as a "most glorious and warlike prince," "chief officer of paradise," "captain of God's hosts," "the receiver of souls," "the vanquisher of evil spirits," and "the admirable general."
_From Hone._
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If Michaelmas Day be fair, the sun will shine much in the winter; though the wind at northeast will frequently reign long, and be very sharp and nipping.
_Thomas Passenger._
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Fresh herring plenty Michael brings, With fatted crones (old ewes) and such old things.
_Tusser._
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When the tenants come to pay their quarter's rent, They bring some fowl at Midsummer, a dish of fish in Lent, At Christmas a capon, at Michaelmas a goose, And somewhat else at New Year's tide, for fear their lease fly loose.
_G. Gascoigne._
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Geese now in their prime season are, Which if well roasted are good fare: Yet, however, friends take heed How too much on them you feed, Lest, when as your tongues run loose, Your discourse do smell of goose.
_"Poor Robin," 1695._
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If you eat goose on Michaelmas Day you will never want money all the year round.
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OLD SAYING.
The Michaelmas moon Rises nine nights alike soon.
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The moon in the wane, gather fruit for to last; But winter fruit gather, when Michael is past; Though michers (thieves) that love not to buy nor to crave, Make some gather sooner, else few for to have.
_Tusser._
OCTOBER
Ancient Cornish name: Miz-hedra, watery month.
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Jewel: Opal. Hope.
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OCTOBER FOURTH.
St. Francis and St. Benedight died 1226.
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St. Francis and St. Benedight, Blesse this house from wicked wight From the night-mare, and the goblin That is night Good-Fellow-Robin; Keep it from all evil spirits, Fairies, weezils, rats, and ferrets: From curfew time, To the next prime.
_William Cartwright._
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Who soweth in rain Hath weed to his pain; But worse shall he speed That soweth ill seed.
_Tusser._
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When Autumn, sad but sunlit, doth appear, With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf, Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year, Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf; When all the hills with woolly seed are white, When lightning fires and gleams do meet from far the sight; When the fair apple, flushed as even sky, Doth bend the tree unto the fertile ground, When juicy pears and berries of black dye Do dance in air and call the eye around: Then, be the even foul or be it fair, Methinks my heart's delight is stained with some care.
_Chatterton._
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There is strange music in the stirring wind, When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone, Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.
_W. L. Bowles._
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OF GARDENS.
In October and beginning of November come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or removed to come late, hollyoaks, and such like.
_Bacon._
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SEED-TIME.
October's gold is dim--the forests rot, The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day Is wrapt in damp. In mire of village way The hedgerow leaves are stampt, and, all forgot, The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn. Autumn, among her drooping marigolds, Weeps all her garnered fields and empty folds And dripping orchards, plundered and forlorn.
_David Gray._
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AUTUMN DAYS.
Yellow, mellow, ripened days, Sheltered in a golden coating; O'er the dreamy, listless haze, White and dainty cloudlets floating Winking at the blushing trees, And the sombre, furrowed fallow; Smiling at the airy ease Of the southward flying swallow. Sweet and smiling are thy ways, Beauteous, golden, Autumn days!
Shivering, quivering, tearful days, Fretfully and sadly weeping; Dreading still, with anxious gaze, Icy fetters round thee creeping; O'er the cheerless, withered plain, Woefully and hoarsely calling; Pelting hail and drenching rain, On thy scanty vestments falling. Sad and mournful are thy ways, Grieving, wailing, Autumn days!
_Will. Carleton._
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Moan, oh ye autumn winds! Summer has fled,
The flowers have closed their tender leaves and die; The lily's gracious head All low must lie, Because the gentle Summer now is dead.
Mourn, mourn, oh autumn winds, Lament and mourn; How many half-blown buds must close and die; Hopes with the Summer born All faded lie, And leave us desolate and earth forlorn!
_A. A. Procter._
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ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE'S DAY. (_October 28th._)
It is a Bedford custom for boys to cry baked pears about the town, with the following words:--
Who knows what I have got? In a hot pot? Baked Wardens--all hot! Who knows what I have got?
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October brings the cold weather down, When the wind and the rain continue; He nerves the limbs that are lazy grown, And braces the languid sinew; So while we have voices and lungs to cheer, And the winter frost before us, Come chant to the king of the mortal year, And thunder him out in chorus.
_E. E. Bowen._
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"Decay, decay," the wildering west winds cry; "Decay, decay," the moaning woods reply; The whole dead autumn landscape, drear and chill, Strikes the same chord of desolate sadness still.
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Full moon in October without frost, no frost till full moon in November.
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Hoar frost and gipsies never stay nine days in a place.
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There are always nineteen fine days in October.
_Kentish saying._
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An April frost Is sharp, but kills not; sad October's storm Strikes when the juices and the vital sap Are ebbing from the leaf.
_Henry Taylor._
NOVEMBER
Ancient Cornish name: Miz-dui, black month.
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Jewel for the month: Topaz. Fidelity.
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NOVEMBER 1ST. (_All Saints' Day._)
On All Saints' Day hard is the grain. The leaves are dropping, the puddle is full, At setting off in the morning Woe to him that will trust a stranger.
On All Saints' Day blustering is the weather, Unlike the beginning of the past fair season: Besides God there is none that knows the future.
_From the Welsh. 1792._
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Apples, peares, hawthorns, quicksetts, oakes. Sett them at All Hallow-tyde, and command them to grow; sett them at Candlemas-tide and entreat them to grow.
_Wilts._
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Who sets an apple tree may live to see it end, Who sets a pear tree may set it for a friend.
_Hereford._
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Their loveliness of life and leaf At last the waving trees have shed; The garden ground is sown with grief, The gay chrysanthemum is dead.
But oh! remember this: There must be birth and blossoming; Nature will waken with a kiss Next Spring!
_Clement Scott._
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Thorny balls, each three in one, The chestnuts throw in our path in showers! For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun, These early November hours.
_Browning._
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There never was a juster debt Than what the dry do pay for wet; Never a debt was paid more nigh As what the wet do pay for dry!
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A wet Sunday, a fine Monday, wet the rest of the week.
_Winchester._
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An early winter, A surly winter.
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ST. MARTIN'S DAY. (_November 11th._)
If Martinmas ice can bear a duck, The winter will be all mire and muck.
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'Tween Martinmas and Yule, Water's wine in every pool.
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If it is cold, fair, and dry at Martinmas, the cold in winter will not last long.
_Old saying._
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Young and old must go warm at Martinmas.
_Italy._
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Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky. Dreary the leaf lieth low, All things must come to the earth by-and-by, Out of which all things grow.
_Owen Meredith._
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The year's on the wane, There is nothing adorning, The night has no eve, And the day has no morning; Cold winter gives warning.
_Hood._
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The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere; Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead, They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-tops calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
_W. Cullen Bryant._
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NOVEMBER 20TH. (_St. Edmund's Day._)
Set garlike and pease St. Edmund to please.
_Tusser._
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If on Friday it rain, 'Twill on Sunday again; If Friday be clear, Have for Sunday no fear.
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From twelve to two See what the day will do.
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NOVEMBER 23RD. (_St. Clement's Day._)
Catherine and Clement, be here, be here; Some of your apples, and some of your beer; Some for Peter, and some for Paul, And some for Him that made us all. Clement was a good old man, For his sake give us some; Not of the worst, but some of the best, And God will send your soul to rest.
_Worcestershire._
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NOVEMBER 30TH. (_St. Andrew's Day._)
On St. Andrew's the night is twice as long as the day.
_Portugal._
DECEMBER
Ancient Cornish name: Miz-kavardine, following black month.
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Jewel for the month: Turquoise. Prosperity.
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Though now no more the musing ear Delights to listen to the breeze, That lingers o'er the green-wood shade, I love thee, Winter! well.
Sweet are the harmonies of Spring, Sweet is the Summer's evening gale, And sweet the autumnal winds that shake The many-colour'd grove.
And pleasant to the sober'd soul The silence of the wintry scene, When Nature shrouds herself, entranced In deep tranquillity.
_Southey._
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December frost and January flood Never boded husbandman good.
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When there are three days cold, expect three days colder.
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OF GARDENS.
I do hold it, in the royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.
For December and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such things as are green all winter, holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cypress trees, yew, pines, fir trees, rosemary, lavender, periwinkle, the white, the purple, and the blue; germander, flags, orange trees, lemon trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm set.
_Bacon._
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If frost do continue, take this for a law, The strawberries look to be covered with straw, Laid overly trim upon crotches and bows, And after uncovered, as weather allows. The gilliflower also, the skilful do know, Doth look to be covered in frost and in snow: The knot and the border, and rosemary gay, Do crave the like succour, for dying away.
_Tusser._
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DECEMBER 5TH. (_St. Nicholas's Eve._)
St. Nicholas, besides being the patron of children, was supposed to have provided marriage portions for portionless maidens.
Saint Nicholas money used to give to maidens secretlie, Who, that he still may use his wonted liberalitie, The mothers all their children on the eve do cause to fast, And, when they every one at night in senseless sleepe are cast, Both apples, nuttes, and peares they bring, and other things beside, As caps, and shooes and petticotes, which secretlie they hide, And in the morning found, they say, that this Saint Nicholas brought: Thus tender mindes to worship Saints, and wicked things are taught.
_From "The Popish Kingdom," 1750._ _Barnaby Googe._
St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra, patron saint of virgins, boys, sailors, and the worshipful company of parish clerks of the city of London.
_Hone._
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The drooping year is in the wane, No longer floats the thistle-down; The crimson heath is wan and sere; The sedge hangs withering by the mere, And the broad fern is rent and brown.
The owl sits huddling by himself, The cold has pierced his body through; The patient cattle hang their head; The deer are 'neath their winter shed; The ruddy squirrel's in his bed, And each small thing within its burrow.
_Mary Howitt._
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DECEMBER 21ST. (_St. Thomas's Day._)
St. Thomas grey St. Thomas grey, The longest night and the shortest day.
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Look at the weathercock on St. Thomas's Day at twelve o'clock, and see which way the wind is, and there it will stick for the next three months.
_Warwickshire._
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There is never a Saturday in the year But what the sun it doth appear.
* * * * *
If birds pipe afore Christmas they'll greet after.
_Scotland._
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Mystic mistletoe flaunted, Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yuletide.
_Longfellow._
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William Stukeley, Arch Druid (1687-1765), says: "The Druids cut mistletoe off the trees with their upright hatchets of brass, called Celts, put upon the ends of their staffs, which they carried in their hands."
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Mistletoe is said to be the forbidden tree in the middle of the trees of Eden.
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If Christmas Day on Monday be, A great winter that year you'll see.
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What chyld on that day boorn be, Of gret worscheyp schall he be.
_MS. in Bodleian._
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If that Christmas Day should fall Upon Friday, know well all That winter season shall be easy, Save great winds aloft shall fly.
* * * * *
Easter in snow, Christmas in mud; Christmas in snow, Easter in mud.
_Germany._
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So now is come our joyful feast; Let every man be jolly; Each room with ivy leaves is drest And every post with holly. Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine; Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.
_George Wither._
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CAROL OF QUEEN ANNE'S TIME, 1695.
Thrice welcome Christmas, Which makes us good cheer, Mince pies and plum porridge, Good ale and strong beer, With pig, goose and capon, The best that may be, So well doth the weather And our stomachs agree. Observe how the chimneys Do smoke all about-- The cooks are providing For dinner, no doubt!
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