June

Lightsome, laughter-loving June,
Days that swoon
In beds of flowers;
Twilights dipped in rose perfume,
Nights of gloom
Washed clear by showers.
Suns that softly sink to rest
In the west,
All purple barred;
And a faint night-wind that sighs
Under skies
Still, silver-starred.
Languorous breaths of meadow land
Overspanned
By clouds like snow;
And a shouting from the brooks,
Where in nooks
Late violets grow.
June, ah, June, to lie and dream
By the stream,
And in the maze
Of thy spells never to heed--
How they speed,
Thy witching days;
Watching where the shadows pass,
And the grass
All rustling bends,
While the bees fly east and west,
On a quest
That never ends.
Thus to shun the whirl of life,
Freed from strife
And freed from care--
Hear, as when a lad I heard
How the bird
Sings, high in air.
June, to hear beneath the skies
Lullabies
That night airs blow;
Ah, to find upon thy breast
That pure rest
I used to know!