Forgive me or being so sentimental – the days that close out any year tend to bring out a sense of melancholy in me. As you can tell we’ve been listening a lot to Loreena McKennitt’s “To Drive The Cold Winter Away” CD lately, and her song “The Seasons” is lovely bit of prose set to equally lovely music. The lyrics stand on their own, and seem perfect for a day like this – that quiet and somewhat uneasy interlude between Christmas and the start of another year with its own strange combination of promise, hope, and uncertainty. Enjoy!

Come all you lads and lasses, I’d have you give attention
To these few lines I’m about to write here
‘Tis of the four seasons of the year that I shall mention
Beauty of all things doth appear
And now you are young and all in your prosperity
Come cheer up your hearts and revive like the spring
Join off in pairs like the birds in February
That St. Valentine’s Day it forth do bring

Then cometh spring, which all the land doth nourish
The fields are beginning to be decked with green
The trees put forth their buds and the blossoms they do flourish
The tender blades of corn on the earth are to be seen
Don’t you see the little lambs by the dams a-playing?
The cuckoo is singing in the shady grove
The flowers they are springing, the maids they go a-Maying
And in love all hearts seem now to move

Then cometh autumn with the sun so hot and piercing
The sportsman goes forth with his dog and his gun
To fetch down the woodcock, the partridge and the pheasant
For health and for profit as well as for fun
Behold, with loaded apple trees the farmer is befriended
They will full up his casks that have long laid dry
All nature seems to weary now, her task is nearly ended
And more of the seasons will come by and by

When night comes on with song and tale we pass the wintry hours
By keeping up a cheerful heart we hope for better days
We tend the cattle, sow the seed, give work unto the plowers
With patience wait ’til winter yields before the sun’s fair rays
And so the world goes ’round and ’round, and every time and season
With pleasure and profit crowns the passage of the year
And so through every time of life, to him who acts with reason
The beauty of all things doth appear