Classic Poem

Summer is raging in the South,
The great sun with his brazen mouth
Has breathed upon the land until
Each mountain stream and valley rill,
Like hottest tears, almost refuse
To flow; there are no cooling dews
To make the arid mornings bland—
The trees in drooping silence stand,
As if by some great power curst
And doomed to fade and die, as erst
The barren tree of Holy Land
Faded and died at God's command.
The tender flowers, like pious hearts
When tortured by scorn's ireful darts,
Fold their mute leaves, accept the doom,
And die in their own sweet perfume;
But, like the thing whose name it bears,
The tiger-lily little cares
How fiercely scorching sunlight glows,
And all the more serenely blows.
And while the daintier blossoms wilt,
Bowing their heads as if with guilt,
The sunflower, with calm, rustic grace,
Stares the hot god right in the face.

Among the trees about the lawn
Birds whistle for a while at dawn,
The locust then trills out a strain
With shrill and resonant refrain,
Singing his song till the sun is hid,
When the impatient katydid
Begins to pipe her fretful tune
Unto the fair disdainful moon.

All night the air is hot and still;
The song of some lone whippoorwill
Is heard until the sad refrain
Glides from the ear into the brain,
When, stealing through the rich perfume
That languishes about the room,
Breathed from magnolia's creamy bloom,
Sleep comes with all her mystic charms
And woos the spirit to her arms.