Poem by Archibald Lampman

June

    Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn
        That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread
        Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed
    Woke the arbutus with her silver horn;
            And now May, too, is fled,
    The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May,
        With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet,
    Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay
        With tulips and the scented violet.

    Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue
        And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more
        The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor;
    The purpling grasses are no longer young,
            And summer's wide-set door
    O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth
        Lets in the torrent of the later bloom,
    Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth,
        The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume.

    All day in garden alleys moist and dim,
        The humid air is burdened with the rose;
        In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows;
    And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn
            From every orchard close
    At eve comes flooding rich and silvery;
        The daisies in great meadows swing and shine;
    And with the wind a sound as of the sea
        Roars in the maples and the topmost pine.

    High in the hills the solitary thrush
        Tunes magically his music of fine dreams,
        In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams;
    And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush
            The mellow morning gleams.
    The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there,
        The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue,
    And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair,
        And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew.

    So with thronged voices and unhasting flight
        The fervid hours with long return go by;
        The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high
    Tell the slow moments of the solemn night
            With unremitting cry;
    Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth
        The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion
    Trails his dim fires along the droused south;
        The silent world-incrusted round moves on.

    And all the dim night long the moon's white beams
        Nestle deep down in every brooding tree,
        And sleeping birds, touched with a silly glee,
    Waken at midnight from their blissful dreams,
            And carol brokenly.
    Dim surging motions and uneasy dreads
        Scare the light slumber from men's busy eyes,
    And parted lovers on their restless beds
        Toss and yearn out, and cannot sleep for sighs.

    Oft have I striven, sweet month, to figure thee,
        As dreamers of old time were wont to feign,
        In living form of flesh, and striven in vain;
    Yet when some sudden old-world mystery
            Of passion fired my brain,
    Thy shape hath flashed upon me like no dream,
        Wandering with scented curls that heaped the breeze,
    Or by the hollow of some reeded stream
        Sitting waist-deep in white anemones;

    And even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone,
        A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy,
        Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ
    The golden magic clung, a light that shone
            And filled me with thy joy.
    Before me like a mist that streamed and fell
        All names and shapes of antique beauty passed
    In garlanded procession with the swell
        Of flutes between the beechen stems; and last,

    I saw the Arcadian valley, the loved wood,
        Alpheus stream divine, the sighing shore,
        And through the cool green glades, awake once more,
    Psyche, the white-limbed goddess, still pursued,
            Fleet-footed as of yore,
    The noonday ringing with her frighted peals,
        Down the bright sward and through the reeds she ran,
    Urged by the mountain echoes, at her heels
        The hot-blown cheeks and trampling feet of Pan.

1. Forest Moods
2. Distance
3. Heat
4. Among the Millet
5. An Impression

Edgar Guest June ("June is here, the month of roses, month of brides and month of bees")

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