Though I sorrow it to say,

November is a churl alway,

Miserly, beside the fire,

Just outside the echoing choir,

Sits he peevishly, and ponders

On this life and all its wonders,

Hearing through the grudging screen

Organ notes, that slip between

Prayers for dead men and dead hopes,

While the priests, in ’broidered copes,

Sing to heaven; yet not for him

Goes up the incense or the hymn.

Fie, November!

—Walter Thornbury, “The Twelve Brothers.”