Like a drowsy, rain-browned saint,
You squat, and sometimes your voice
In which the wind takes no part,
Is like mists of music wedding each other.
A drunken, odor-laced peddler is the morning wind.
He brings you golden-scarfed cities
Whose voices are swirls of bells burdened with summer;
And maidens whose hearts are galloping princes.
And you raise your branches to the sky,
With a whisper that holds the smile you cannot shape.
So many cares to vex the day,
So many fears to haunt the night,
My heart was all but weaned away
From every lure of old delight.
Then summer came, announced by June,
With beauty, miracle and mirth.
She hung aloft the rounding moon,
She poured her sunshine on the earth,
She drove the sap and broke the bud,
She set the crimson rose afire.
She stirred again my sullen blood,
And waked in me a new desire.
Before my cottage door she spread
The softest carpet nature weaves,
And deftly arched above my head
A canopy of shady leaves.
Summer comes to the stricken earth.
Lays clement fingers of bud and leaf
On broken hedge and field's brown dearth
And the bare hills' rocky grief;
Brings her comfort of May and June,
Pours on red wounds the blackbird's tune,
Bids with her gallant, imperious green
Anger and vengeance and fevered hate
Abate.
Deep in my heart is a faded pain
None knows:
Summer, put there a rose
Red as its one-time scar!
Bid it flame to a grief again,
Bid it sing like the morning star —
Shining song of a fresh young woe
Its hot voice sizzles from some cool tree
Near-by :
It seems to burn its way through the air
Like a small, pointed flame of sound
Sharpened on the ecstatic edge of sunbeams.
O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O heart of the world, red-gold!
Breast high in the blossom I stand;
It beats about me like waves
Of a magical, golden sea.
The barren heart of the world
Alive at the kiss of the sun,
The yellow mantle of Summer
Flung over a laughing land,
Warm with the warmth of her body,
Sweet with the kiss of her breath.
O valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O mystical marriage of Earth
With the passionate Summer sun!
In the youth of summer
The hills of Cualann
Are two golden horns,
Two breasts of childing,
Two tents of light.
In the age of winter
They are two rusted swords,
Two waves of darkness.
Two moons of ice.
The patter of a baby's feet
Upon the floor,
His babble at the door —
Ah, these are sounds too sweet, too sweet !
Blue sky, save me from tears !
Soft summer wind, stop up mine ears !
The patter of a baby's feet,
His chatter— oh, too tender sweet !
Silver dust
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted,
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;
no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;
O white pear,
your flower-tufts
thick on the branch
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.
Oh ! for the welcome breath of country air,
With Summer skies and flowers,
To shout and feel once more the halcyon
Of gayer boyhood hours.
I think the sight of fields and shady lanes
Would ease my heart of pains.
To cool once more my thirst, where bubbled up
The waters of a spring,
Where I have seen the golden daffodils
And lillies flourishing.
My fevered heart would more than half forget
Its sighs, and vain regret.
Far, far away, from early scenes am I ;
And, too, my youth has fled;
For me a stranger's land, a stranger's sky.
That arches overhead.
Gay hollyhocks with flaming bells
And waving plumes, as gently swells
The breeze upon the Summer air;
You bind me still with magic spells
When to the wind, in grave farewells,
You bow in all your graces fair.
You bring me back the childhood view,
Where arching skies and deepest blue
Stretch on in endless lengths above;
To see you so awakes anew
Long past emotions, from which grew
My wild and first heart-throbs of love.
There is in all your brilliant dyes.
Your gorgeousness and azure skies,
A joy like soothing summer rain;
Yet in the scene there vaguely lies
You went away in summertime
When leaves and flowers were young,
And birds still lingered in the fields
With many songs unsung.
I'm glad it was in summertime
When skies were clear and blue,
I could not say good-bye to you
And bear the winter too.
When I leave down this pipe my friend
And sleep with flowers I loved, apart,
My songs shall rise in wilding things
Whose roots are in my heart.
And here where that sweet poet sleeps
I hear the songs he left unsung,
When winds are fluttering the flowers
And summer-bells are rung.