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Quotations about December
We have eaten up the year,
We have gnawed its marrow bones,
We have broken teeth on days
That were bread turned into stones;
We have gorged October skies
Whose red wine alone can slake.
Now there's nothing but December's
Thickly frosted marble cake.
~Benjamin Musser, "December," 1920s
Of all the months of the year there is not a month one-half so welcome to the young, or so full of happy associations, as the last month of the year... ~"All the Year Round: December," All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal Conducted by Charles Dickens, 1887
bee-buzzed blooms
wilt white into winter —
hellish heavy heat
silently softens to snow —
lovely lustrous leaves
fall freckled in frost —
senescent slanting sun
solstices southward —
the young year yules
dizzily debarks december
~Terri Guillemets, "Whirlwind," 2023
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.
~Sara Coleridge (1802–1852), "The Months"
He had been walking for a long time, ever since dark in fact, and dark falls soon in December. ~Charlotte Riddell (1832–1906), "The Old House in Vauxhall Walk," 1882 [Her stories, at the time, were published under the name of Mrs. J. H. Riddell.
When dark December glooms the day,
And takes our autumn joys away;
When short and scant the sun-beam throws,
Upon the weary waste of snows...
~Walter Scott, Marmion, 1808
Will love be true as December frost, or fickle and fall like the rose in June? ~Clement Scott, "In Sight of Home," c.1883
And last December drear,
With piteous low-drooped head,
In a voice of desolation
Crying out, "The year is dead!"
And so, with changeful gear,
With smile or frown or song,
The months, in strange variation,
Are ever gliding along.
~Edgar Fawcett, "The Masque of Months," 1878
You have had many rectors here in St. Andrews who will continue in bloom long after the lowly ones such as I am are dead and rotten and forgotten. They are the roses in December; you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.... my December roses — have been very simple folk. ~J. M. Barrie, "Courage" (The Rectorial Address Delivered at St. Andrews University), 1922
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!...
~William Shakespeare
If the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates. ~John Burroughs, "Winter Sunshine," 1875
On cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
~Alexander Pope (1688–1744), The Dunciad, 1728
If cold December gave you birth—
The month of snow, and ice, and mirth—
Place on your hand a turquoise blue,
Success will bless whate'er you do.
~Author unknown, "A Gem for Every Month," c.1883
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December,
A magical thing,
And sweet to remember:
"We are nearer to spring
Than we were in September."
~Oliver Herford, "Hope," in The Century Magazine, 1914
December is here — one of those mild cheery days, however, when you can hardly realise that the boughs are indeed bare, and the beds flowerless, and the Spring birds far away; — one of those days which tempt you out into the garden, to saunter and loiter there, and look at the patches that will be snowdrops soon, and to think longingly of leaves where you had before naturally and as of course acquiesced in the canopy of bare boughs... ~John Richard Vernon, The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: Leisure Thoughts for Busy Lives, 1867
December drops no weak, relenting tear,
By our fond summer sympathies ensnared;
Nor from the perfect circle of the year
Can even winter's crystal gems be spared.
~Christopher Pearse Cranch, "December," 1872
Do your heart and head keep pace?
When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire?
Can its embers burn below
All that chill December snow?..
~Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908), "Toujours Amour"
What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away?...
~William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, c.1609
And in December's gloomy shades
Some Chickweed stars did shine.
One Daisy, too, the bleak month gave
To baffle melancholy;
And e'en I saw fair Flora smile
When crowned with crimson Holly!
And then the queen of all the flowers
Passed onward, soft and slow—
Her radiant brows adorned with Pearls
Of sacred Mistletoe!
~James Rigg, "The Progress of Queen Flora, Adorned by a Hundred Wild Flowers," Wild Flower Lyrics and Other Poems, 1897
...when the hoar frost falls on the wood,
And the rabbit cowers, and the squirrel is cold,
And the horned owl huddles against a star,
And the drifts are deep, and the year is old...
~Frances Frost, Christmas in the Woods, 1942
I wander forth this chill December dawn:
John Frost and all his elves are out, I see,
As busy as the elfin world can be,
Clothing a world asleep with fleecy lawn...
~Robert Buchanan (1841–1901), "Snow"
Roasting turkeys! Rich mince pies!
Cakes of every shape and size!
~Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, "December," A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes, 1917
Farewell, old year; we walk no more together;
I catch the sweetness of thy latest sigh...
Here in the dim light of a grey December
We part in smiles, and yet we met in tears;
Watching thy chilly dawn, I well remember...
~Sarah Doudney (1841–1926), "A Parting"
[I]t may interest those who wish to marry to know that the luckiest day and month for marriages is by superstitious people held to be the thirty-first of December. ~"All the Year Round: December," All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal Conducted by Charles Dickens, 1887
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