We near the end of September. I have never had difficulty remembering that September has 30 days. However, I do occasionally find myself close to the end of a month trying to remember whether the month has 30 days or 31. I recall this issue having recently occurred to be in June and November. I came across a children’s poem composed to help us remember which months have 30 days and which months have 31 (as well as to sort out the matter of February).
I found The Days of the Month reprinted in a 1904 collection titled Poems Every Child Should Know. According to the collection, the author of The Days of the Month is unknown. The poem, or old song, reads as follows:
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; February has twenty-eight alone. All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting leap-year—that's the time When February's days are twenty-nine.
Poems Every Child Should Know described The Days of the Month as “a useful bit of doggerel that we need all through life.” Now that I have discovered it, I will try to commit it to memory to resolve my occasional issues discerning whether certain months have 30 days or 31.
