Nancy Byrd Turner Poems

Men go out from the places where they dwelled,
They know not why not whither, overborne
At midnight by some awful word, foresworn
Between one dark and day, called and compelled.
...

Amos and Ann had a poem to learn,
A poem to learn one day;
But alas! they sighed, and alack! they cried,
...

They went to the January house,
A house made all of snow,
With windows of ice, and chandeliers
Of icicles all in a row.
...

The house of December was all aglow,
Each room was jolly and red;
There were bulgy stockings ranged in a row,
...

The next house stood just back from the street,
In a gray little narrow lane.
A table loaded with things to eat
...

They went to the February place:
'Twas fashioned, with curious art,
Of colored sugar and paper lace,
With a front door shaped like a heart.
...

The March house, strangely, was built in a tree,
With a fluttering roof of leaves,
And strong, straight boughs for the walls of the house,
And an apple or two in the eaves.
...

The April house was near a pond;
It was made of reeds and of rushes,
All helter-skelter and out of kelter,
And ringed by gooseberry bushes.
...

Very familiar September seemed:
A flag-pole stood in the yard,
And the little path that led from the road
Was trampled bare and hard.
...

A green-thatched cottage was May's sweet home
With velvet moss for a floor,
And a clambering vine in the gay sunshine,
And a Maypole set by the door.
...