THE POETRY OF SUMMER.

REPOSE IN SUMMER.

(FROM "THE TALKING OAK.")

HER eyelids dropped their silken eaves,
I breathed upon her eyes,

Through all the summer of my leaves,
A welcome mixed with sighs.

Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip
To light her shaded eye;

A second fluttered round her lip,

Like a golden butterfly.

TENNYSON.

(59)

SUMMER REVERIE.

I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill,

The air was cooling, and so very still,

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scanty-leaved, and finely-tapering stems,
Had not yet lost their starry diadems

Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept -
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.

There was wide wandering for the greediest eye,

To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;

To picture out the quaint and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending:
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

SUMMER REVERIE.

61

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free
As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted,
And many pleasures to my vision started;
So I straightway began to pluck a posy
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them;
Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them!
And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them
Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert-hedge with wild-brier overtwined,)
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be
The frequent-chequer of (a youngling tree,
That with a score of light green brethren shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots :)
Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters,

Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters,

:)

The spreading blue-bells: it may haply mourn

That such fair clusters should be rudely torn
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly

By infant hands, left on the path to die.

Open afresh your round of starry folds,

Ye ardent marigolds!)

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,
For great Apollo bids

That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.

(Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.)
Linger awhile upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
They will be found softer than ringdoves' cooings.
How silent comes the water round that bend!
Not the minutest whisper does it send
To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass
Slowly across the chequered shadows pass.)
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach

SUMMER REVERIE.

A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds ;)

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams

Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle
With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle
Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand!
If you but scantily hold out the hand,
That very instant not one will remain ;

63

But turn your eye, and they are there again.)
The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses,
And cool themselves among the emerald tresses;
The while they cool themselves, they freshness give,
And moisture, that the bowery green may live;
So keeping up an interchange of favors,)

Like good men in the truth of their behaviors.
(Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
From low-hung branches: little space they stop;
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:

Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings,
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.)

Were I in such a place, I sure should pray

That nought less sweet might call my thoughts away,