In July / Edward Dowden

In July

Why do I make no poems? Good my friend
Now is there silence through the summer woods,
In whose green depths and lawny solitudes
The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend
Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend,
But murmurings low of inarticulate moods,
Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods,
Breathe, till o'erdrowsed the heavy flower-heads bend.
Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmed waves
Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long,
Or 'mid the coolness of dim lighted caves
Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness;
And I,– I am too deep in joy's excess
For the imperfect impulse of a song.

~~
Edward Dowden (1843-1913)
from Poems, 1876

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Dowden biography