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| THEY come! the merry summer months of beauty, song, and flowers; | |
| 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, | 5 |
| Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquillity. | |
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| 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; | 10 |
| And mark how with thine own thin locks—they now are silvery gray— | |
| That blissful breeze is wantoning, and whispering, “Be gay!” | |
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| There is no cloud that sails along the ocean of yon sky | |
| But hath its own winged mariners to give it melody; | |
| Thou seest their glittering fans outspread, all gleaming like red gold; | 15 |
| And hark! with shrill pipe musical, their merry course they hold. | |
| God bless them all, those little ones, who, far above this earth, | |
| Can make a scoff of its mean joys, and vent a nobler mirth. | |
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| But soft! mine ear upcaught a sound,—from yonder wood it came! | |
| The spirit of the dim green glade did breathe his own glad name;— | 20 |
| Yes, it is he! the hermit bird, that, apart from all his kind, | |
| Slow spells his beads monotonous to the soft western wind; | |
| Cuckoo! Cuckoo! he sings again,—his notes are void of art; | |
| But simplest strains do soonest sound the deep founts of the heart. | |
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| Good Lord! it is a gracious boon for thought-crazed wight like me, | 25 |
| To smell again the 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! | 30 |
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| I ’m sadder now,—I have had cause; but O, I ’m proud to think | |
| That each pure joy-fount, loved of yore, I yet delight to drink;— | |
| Leaf, blossom, blade, hill, valley, stream, the calm, unclouded sky. | |
| Still mingle music with my dreams, as in the days gone by. | |
| When summer’s loveliness and light fall round me dark and cold, | 35 |
| I ’ll bear indeed life’s heaviest curse,—a heart that hath waxed old! | |
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