Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | II. Midsummer | By William Cullen Bryant (17941878) |
| A POWER is on the earth and in the air, | |
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid, | |
And shelters him in nooks of deepest shade, | |
From the hot steam and from the fiery glare. | |
Look forth upon the earth,her thousand plants | 5 |
Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize | |
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze; | |
The herd beside the shaded fountain pants; | |
For life is driven from all the landscape brown; | |
The bird hath sought his tree, the snake his den, | 10 |
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men | |
Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town: | |
As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent | |
Its deadly breath into the firmament. | | | |
|
|