July / Lionel Johnson

July 

To More Adey

Summer lightning, and rich rain:
Roses perfume the hot air.
All the breathless night is faint,
All the flowery night is fair.
Philomel her joy or plaint
Sings, and sings, and sings again.

What comes now? The earth awaits
What fierce wonder from those skies?
Thunder, trampling through the night?
Morning, with illustrious eyes?
Morning, from the springs of light:
Thunder, round Heaven's opening gates.

~~
Lionel Johnson (1867-1902), 1889
from Ireland, with other poems, 1897

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lionel Johnson biography