Summer Longings

1319

A SPRING LILT

THROUGH the silver mist

Of the blossom-spray

Trill the orioles: list

To their joyous lay!

"What in all the world, in all the world," they say,
"Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?"

"June! June! June!"

Low croon

The brown bees in the clover.

"Sweet! sweet! sweet!"

Repeat

The robins, nested over.

SUMMER LONGINGS

Ан! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May,-
Waiting for the pleasant rambles
Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,

Scent the dewy way.
Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,

Longing for the May,—

Longing to escape from study

To the young face fair and ruddy,

And the thousand charms belonging

To the summer's day.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,

Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,

Sighing for the May,

Sighing for their sure returning,

When the summer beams are burning,

Unknown

Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May,-
Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows;

Where, in laughing and in sobbing,

Glide the streams away....

Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing,
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary,

Waiting for the May:

Spring goes by with wasted warnings,-
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,-
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away;

Man is ever weary, weary,

Waiting for the May!

Denis Florence MacCarthy [1817-1882]

MIDSUMMER

AROUND this lovely valley rise
The purple hills of Paradise.

O, softly on yon banks of haze,
Her rosy face the Summer lays!

Becalmed along the azure sky,
The argosies of cloudland lie,
Whose shores, with many a shining rift,
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer-day
The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.
I seek the coolest sheltered seat,
Just where the field and forest meet,—

Midsummer

Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,
The ancient oaks austere and grand,
And fringy roots and pebbles fret
The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers, as they go

Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even stroke their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind the nimble youngsters run,
And toss the thick swaths in the sun.
The cattle graze, while, warm and still,
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, where summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and humblebee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits.
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats its throbbing drum.
The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house.

The oriole flashes by; and, look!

Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,

Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me.
O, this is peace! I have no need
Of friend to talk, of book to read:
A dear Companion here abides;
Close to my thrilling heart He hides;

1321

The holy silence is His Voice:
I lie and listen, and rejoice.

John Townsend Trowbridge [1827

A MIDSUMMER SONG

O, FATHER'S gone to market-town, he was up before the day,

And Jamie's after robins, and the man is making hay,

And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the

mill,

While mother from the kitchen-door is calling with a will: "Polly!-Polly!-The cows are in the corn! O, where's Polly?"

From all the misty morning air there comes a summer sound

A murmur as of waters from skies and trees and ground.
The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo,
And over hill and hollow rings again the loud halloo:
"Polly!-Polly!-The cows are in the corn!
O, where's Polly?"

Above the trees the honey-bees swarm by with buzz and boom,

And in the field and garden a thousand blossoms bloom. Within the farmer's meadow a brown-eyed daisy blows, And down at the edge of the hollow a red and thorny rose. But Polly!-Polly!-The cows are in the corn!

O, where's Polly?

How strange at such a time of day the mill should stop its clatter!

The farmer's wife is listening now and wonders what's the

matter.

O, wild the birds are singing in the wood and on the hill, While whistling up the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill.

But Polly!-Polly!-The cows are in the corn!

O, where's Polly?

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

From the Prelude to "The Vision of Sir Launfal"

OVER his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;

Against our fallen and traitor lives

The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Its arms outstretched, the druid wood

Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.