Thursday, June 21, 2007

Welcoming Summer


They Come! The Merry Summer Months.

They come! the merry summer months of beauty, song, and flower;
They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers.
Up, up, my heart! and walk abroad; fling cark and care aside;
Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide;
Or, underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree,
Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquility.

The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful to the hand;
And, like the kiss of maiden love, the breeze is sweet and bland;
The daisy and the buttercup are nodding courteously;
It stirs their blood with kindest love, to bless and welcome thee;
And mark how with thine own thin locks--they now are silvery gray--
That blissful breeze is wantoning, and whispering, "Be gay!"

Good Lord! it is a gracious boon for thought crazed wight like me,
To smell again these summer flowers beneath this summer tree!
To suck once more in every breath their little souls away,
And feed my fancy with fond dreams of youth's bright summer day,
When, rushing forth like untamed colt, the reckless, truant boy
Wandered through greenwoods all day long, a mighty heart of joy!

William Motherwell

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