When we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how In this our pinching cave shall we discourse The freezing hours away?

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

Wild was the day; the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New England's strand, When first the thoughtful and the free, Our fathers, trod the desert land.

In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time.

In cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

Shout now! The months with loud acclaim, Take up the cry and send it forth; May breathing sweet her Spring perfumes, November thundering from the North. With hands upraised, as with one voice, They join their notes in grand accord; Hail to December! say they all, It gave to Earth our Christ the Lord!