summer

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
II
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
III
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

37

Before the ice is in the pools—
Before the skaters go,
Or any check at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow—

Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of
On a summer's day—
What is only walking
Just a bridge away—

That which sings so—speaks so—
When there's no one here—
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?

A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs
but I've never seen wheat in a pile.
Apples, potatoes, cabbages, carrots
make lumpy stacks, but you are sleek
as a seal hauled out in the winter sun.
I can see you as a great goose egg
or a single juicy and fully ripe peach.
You swell like a natural grassy hill.
You are symmetrical as a Hopewell mound,
with the eye of the navel wide open,
the eye of my apple, the pear's port
window. You're not supposed to exist
at all this decade. You're to be flat

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

Before I knocked and flesh let enter,
With liquid hands tapped on the womb,
I who was as shapeless as the water
That shaped the Jordan near my home
Was brother to Mnetha's daughter
And sister to the fathering worm.

I who was deaf to spring and summer,
Who knew not sun nor moon by name,
Felt thud beneath my flesh's armour,
As yet was in a molten form
The leaden stars, the rainy hammer
Swung by my father from his dome.

I knew the message of the winter,
The darted hail, the childish snow,

And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."

And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."

When I have come with happy heart to sixty years and ten,
I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;
And in a little lonely isle that's far and far from men,
In peace and praise I'll spend the days the Gods allow to me.
For I am weary of a strife so pitiless and vain;
And in a far and fairy isle, bewilderingly bright,
I'll learn to know the leap and glow of rapture once again,
And welcome every living dawn with wonder and delight.
II
And there I'll build a swan-white house above the singing foam,

The village of Penicuik, with its neighbouring spinning mills,
Is most lovely to see, and the Pentland Hills;
And though of a barren appearance and some parts steep,
They are covered with fine pasture and sustain flocks of sheep.

There, tourists while there should take a good look,
By viewing the surrounding beauties of Penicuik;
About three miles south-west is the romantic locality
Of Newhall, which is most fascinating and charming to see.

Then about half a mile above Newhall the River Esk is seen,

Beautiful Rothesay, your scenery is most grand,
You cannot be surpassed in fair Scotland.
Tis healthy for holiday makers, to go there,
For the benefit of their health, by inhaling the pure air

And to hear the innocent birds, on a fine Summer day,
Carolling their sweet songs, so lively and gay,
Therefore, holiday makers, be advised by me,
And visit beautiful Rothesay, by the side of the Sea.

Then sweet Jessie, let us go,
To Scotland's garden of Eden O!
And spend the lovely Summer day,

Off on the prairie, where the balmy air
Kisses the waving corn,
There lives a farmer, with a daughter fair--
Fair as a summer's morn!
She has a nature gentle as a dove,
Pure as the mountain snows;
Say! is it strange that everyone should love--
Love such a girl as Rose?

Beautiful Rose! lovely Rose!
Pride of the prairie bower!
Everybody loves her--everybody knows
She is the fairest flower.

Rose is a lady yet from early dawn,
Labors her skillful hand;