The Months

Twelve couplets, one per month, each pinned to something a child could actually see happening outside. Sara Coleridge wrote it for her own children, and the calendar it describes is a specifically English one, from February thaws through the August harvest to December sleet.

Origins

Sara Coleridge published it in 1834 in Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children, a book she assembled from material written for her son Herbert and daughter Edith. She was the daughter of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a serious scholar in her own right: she translated a Latin history from the sixteenth century while still in her early twenties, and later spent years editing her father's work for publication.

The poem is frequently reprinted anonymously or credited to "traditional", which is how a named author's work drifts into the nursery-rhyme repertoire. It is not traditional. It has a known writer and a known publication date.

Meaning & Interpretation

The poem teaches month order by attaching each one to a concrete image rather than a definition. Some are weather (snow, rain, sleet), some are plants (daffodil, primrose, tulips), some are farm and country events (lambs, sheaves of corn, gathering nuts).

The vocabulary has aged in places. A gillyflower is an old name for a clove-scented pink or wallflower. "Sheaves of corn" means bundles of cut wheat, since corn in British usage refers to grain generally, not maize. "Harvest home" was the celebration held when the last of the crop came in. These are all real details of the nineteenth-century farming year rather than decoration.

Who wrote January Brings the Snow?

Sara Coleridge, in Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children, published in 1834. She was the daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and wrote the verses to teach her own children. The poem is often reprinted without her name, but it is not anonymous.

What is a gillyflower?

Gillyflower is an old English name for a clove-scented flower, usually a pink or carnation, though it was also applied to wallflowers and stocks. Coleridge pairs it with apricots as a July marker because both appeared in English gardens at that point in the summer.

Why does August bring "sheaves of corn" in an English poem?

In British English, corn means grain crops in general, most often wheat, rather than maize. A sheaf is a bundle of cut stalks tied together and stood up to dry. August was the traditional grain harvest month, which is why the next line mentions harvest home.

How is this different from Thirty Days Hath September?

Thirty Days Hath September is a much older anonymous mnemonic that does one job: it tells you how many days each month contains. Coleridge's poem has a named author, a publication date, and teaches the months by season and scenery instead of by length.