Summer in the South / Paul Laurence Dunbar

Summer in the South

The oriole sings in the greening grove
    As if he were half-way waiting,
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
    Timid and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
    And the nights smell warm and piney,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
    Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,
    Streams laugh that erst were quiet,
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
    And the woods run mad with riot.

~~
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
from Lippincott's, September 1903

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Paul Laurence Dunbar biography