Phebe Ann Holder: Songs of May Blossoms and October’s Calm

November 27, 2020

Today marks the birthday of Phebe Ann Holder, the New England poet born on this day in 1824.

Though she is not widely known today, Holder left behind verses that capture the rhythm and quiet reverence of rural American life in the nineteenth century. Her poetry, simple and lyrical, celebrates the seasons with tenderness and gratitude—echoing the sensibility of those who lived close to the land. For gardeners and lovers of nature, her work feels like a hymn to the changing year.

In her poem A Song of May, Holder welcomes the return of spring with a delicate observance of its small wonders—the lilies, violets, and anemones that weave new life among the remnants of the old year:

The fragrant lily of the vale,
The violet's breath on passing gale.
Anemones mid last year's leaves,
Arbutus sweet in trailing wreaths,
From waving lights of a forest glade
The light ferns hide beneath the shade.

— Phebe Ann Holder, New England poet, A Song of May

The imagery unfolds like a May morning itself: light, fragrant, and full of quiet renewal. Each line seems to arrive with dawn, greeting familiar flowers as old friends. Holder’s words invite the reader to pause—to look closely at the subtle miracles of rebirth that spring conceals beneath its gentleness.

And when the year bends again toward its end, Holder’s A Song of October turns her same gentle voice toward the gathering calm of autumn. In place of green abundance, she praises stillness and rest:

The softened light, the veiling haze,
The calm repose of autumn days,
Steal gently over the troubled breast,
Soothing life's weary cares to rest.

— Phebe Ann Holder, New England poet, A Song of October

This poem carries the golden hush of late October—the veil of haze, the easing of the heart after labor. Her words echo the season’s own music: resignation without sorrow, beauty without fanfare.

For Holder, the natural world was not only decorative but devotional—a mirror for the soul’s own cycles of striving and repose.

Together, A Song of May and A Song of October frame the year in balance—the awakening of life and its graceful winding down. Through her quiet and observant voice, Phebe Ann Holder reminds us of something every gardener knows: that each season sings its own lyric of renewal, and that both beginning and ending are sanctified by beauty.