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, "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, Scent the dewy way. 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, Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, Where, in laughing and in sobbing, Glide the streams away.... Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing, Waiting sad, dejected, weary, Waiting for the May: Spring goes by with wasted warnings,- Man is ever weary, weary, Waiting for the May! Denis Florence MacCarthy [1817-1882] MIDSUMMER AROUND this lovely valley rise O, softly on yon banks of haze, Becalmed along the azure sky, Through all the long midsummer-day Midsummer Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland, I watch the mowers, as they go Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row. The butterfly and humblebee 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. 1321 The holy silence is His Voice: 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. 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, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; 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; At the devil's booth are all things sold, |