 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. All Round the Year by Edith Nesbitt and Soretta Nesbitt, also known as Caris Brook. All Round the Year, the changing suns and rains beat on men's work to wreck and to decay. But nature builds more perfectly than they, her changing, unchanged sea resists, remains. All Round the Year new flowers spring up to shoo, how gloriously life is more strong than death. And in our hearts are seeds of love and faith. Ah, sun and showers, be kind and let them grow. Resurgam Swift past the hours, or lengthened by our hearts, uncertain measurement of time. And when we dream the year has just awoke, we wait to find her in her prime. We sadden with the dying autumn leaves, yet falling seeds their promise bring. Through long, dark winter days, we only wait a resurrection in the coming spring. Within each hour the precious minutes lie, like seeds awaiting spring's first breath. God's harvest time shall show us if they bear the flowers of life or death. Cold as the earth, the flowers below, fearful of winter's hand, lie curled. But spring will come again, you know, and glorify the world. Dark is the night, no stars or moon, but at its blackest night is done. All after hastens to the noon, the triumph of the sun. And life is short and love is brief. Be patient, there will be, they say. New life divine beyond belief, somewhere, somehow, some day. March Violets This busy, dusty wind that blows along the cruel streets, right to the heart of Violets goes and robs them of their sweets. And as along the cruel street the keen wind robs the flowers, so the cold kindness that we meet blights these poor hearts of ours. But if you tend with warmth, you know, your Violets, they give sweet scent again, as if to show how glad they are to live. We think, if someone loved us too, our hearts would break to prove by all that we could say or do how glad we were to love. Dream footsteps wandering past us in our sleep, a restless presence stirring with the light, the cry of waters where the snow was white, a Violet's whisper where dead leaves lay deep. The dim wood's music makes a sudden leap, broken notes blending in a wild delight, and lo, the whole world changes in our sight. Promise is ended, we must turn and reap fulfillment, for the spring with all her wealth is with us, and compels us to her will. Yet, if the sun dawn, we should shun by stealth, yearning for shadows and the darkened hours. Sweet Lord, be pitiful, remembering still, one lyre-flow beneath the budding flowers. Never a hand on the cottage-door to call me forth in the evening light. My days grow old, and I watch no more the cow slips gold and the may buds white. Primrose is nestled beneath the hedge, where we kissed and wept and said goodbye. For twenty years I have watched them bud, for twenty years I have seen them die. Yet now that the spring once more has turned the sea to silver, the earth to gold, I shall watch no more from the primrose lane, where I waited and watched in the days of old. Yet the children weave me their daisy chains, the woodland music is sweet and clear, though the footsteps have wandered beyond recall, that I watched and waited so long to hear. The swans along the water glide, unfettered and yet side by side, so should true lovers ever be, together ever, ever free. A chain upon the white swan's neck, what were it good for, save to break? And swans who wear and break a chain, swim never side by side again. My best beloved, the spring is fair, the woods are green and life is good, come out with me and let us tread by field and fold and sweet wet wood. The windflower blanches all the cops, with hyacinth the hedge is blue, and every waken leaf is fair, but not so fair as you. The blackbirds sing on hazel boughs, beneath the overarching trees, the cuckoo's distant song is born, across the meadow by the breeze. The freshest song is sweetest far, but saddens as the hours go by. You hear the nightingales in love, but not so much as I. Girdled with gold, my little lady's bower, stands at the portals of a world in flower, and down her ways the changing blossoms mark, how the spring grows each day from dawn to dark. When forth she moves her dainty foot is set, on cow slip, hyacinth and violet, and all day long the woodland minstrel sing, changes of measure for her pleasuring. And all night long a passionate music stirs, without her walls the darkened belt of furs hushed in their waving bows, the low winds brood murmuring the sea's song for an interlude. The last bright relic of the moon's full gold burns on the swiftly flowing river's breast, no sound but restless dipping of strong oars to break the charm of nature's perfect rest. Far off the towns faint mingled clamour stir, and through the silence of the nearer light the incense of the evening mist float up, the days last lingering love-word to the night. A sudden shiver of regretful change sighs through the whispering boughs that overhead sway in the wind's breath, down the red sun dips, and in the toilets arms the day lies dead. Then rain and after moonshine cold and fair, and scent of earth sweet with the evening rain, and slow soft speech beneath the rainwashed trees, ah that such things should never come again. O listening trees, where are the words we spoke? Where are our sighs wind whom those sighs caressed? O what a fate is ours, too swift, too sad, if such an hour goes by with all the rest. What o'clock is it, children, dear? Ask of the dandelions here. Blow, blow, blow, and away they go, but they do not tell us the time, you know. Say, what month is it, children, dear? We think it is August because we hear the swing of the sickle, restless and slow, and that's a sign of the month, you know. Where are you going, children, dear? Where the lane winds deep and the stream runs clear. There are plenty of beautiful ways to go, but only one way that two only know. Where are we going, children, dear? To a beautiful country that's very near. Hand in hand is the way to go. Up into fairyland, you know. Ah, me, how pleasant to go down from the full lawn and faded town to kentish wood and fold and lane and breathe God's blessed air again, where glorious yellow cornfields blaze and nuts hang over woodland ways to pick the sweet, keen-scented hops. See, from each pole a dream wreath drops to toil all day in pure clean air, laughter and sunshine everywhere, with reddening woods and sweet wet soil and well-earned rest and honest toil. Where do we fly, under deep, dark sky? Over the moors we go, over the pool where quiet and cool, bulrush and sedges grow. And what was the loveliest thing we met? Ah, we forget. We remember, though, all the firelit glow of a great hearth's gleam and clear, and we looked for a space at each happy face and the love that was written there. And that, of all we have looked on yet, we least forget. Oh, what a day, all yellow and grey and so dark, so dreary, so foggy and thick that if I should meet in the street sweet I might pass her by. Risk that, not I. Take me home out of danger then, quick feet, quick! Not summer's crown of scent, the red rose weaves, nor Hawthorne blossom over bloom-strewn grass, nor violets whisper when the children pass, nor lilac perfume in the soft-may eaves, nor Newmurn hay, crisp scent of yellow sheaves, nor any scent that springtime can amass and summer squander, such a magic has a scent of fresh wet earth and fallen leaves. For sometimes lovers in November days, when earth is grieving for the vanished sun, have trod dead leaves in chill and wintry ways, and kissed and dreamed eternal summer one. Look back, look back, through memories deepening haze. See, two who dream that dream, and you were one. The lover to his lass. Dearest, the winter is here. It will be sad, so you said, when no green leaves overhead shadow the path where we tread. I said, it still will be dear if we still meet, oh, my sweet. See how the seasons are kind. See this December forget how to be weary and wet. Hardly hour-dune I regret. Winter so calmly I find since you are here, oh, my dear. Sweet heart, I sometimes believe. Love, not the sun, make us glad. Even the mists were not sad if your soft hand class by had. Hearts sing through skies mourn and grieve, all weather's fair if you're there. Someday a home there shall be. Love shall be son of it sweet. Joy shall be full and complete. Sound of small voices and feet, while like the sunshine for me, you light up life, you, my wife. Before parting. Now surely is the hour come for farewell. Now, with the lessened light and darkened days. Who now would tread the wild hills pathless ways we found so fair when spring and summer's spell made blind our hearts this parting to foretell? Yet why, when one and wintry sunlight stays on perished gold of autumn fields delays your heart to speak, while both our hearts rebel? Together we have gathered through the year, all that the year could give us of its best. Is it not meet our parting should be here? Now, in the seasoned rear of death and rest. Yet since together we its joys have known. How shall each meet the strange new year alone? End of All Around the Year by Enes Bitt and Karris Brooke.