June / John Payne

June

The empress of the year, the meadows' queen,
Back from the East, with all her goodly train,
Is come, to glorify the world again
With length of light and middle Summer-Sheen.
In every plot, upon her throne of green,
Bright blooms the rose; with birds and blossom-rain
And perfume ecstacied are wood and plain
And Winter is as if it ne'er had been.
Oh June, liege-lady of the flowering prime,
Now that thrush, finch, lark, linnet, ousel, wren
Thy praises pipe, to the Iranian bard
How shall we harken, who, the highwaymen
Autumn and Winter, warns us, follow hard
On thy fair feet and bide their baleful time?

~~
John Payne (1842-1916)
from Vigil and Vision; New sonnets, 1903

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

John Payne biography