Summer and the Poet / William Howitt

Summer And The Poet

Poet:

Oh! golden, golden Summer,
What is it thou hast done?
Thou hast chased each vernal roamer
With thy fiercely burning sun.

Glad was the cuckoo's hail;
Where may we hear it now?
Thou hast driven the nightingale
From the waving hawthorn bough.

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river;
Thou hast made the small brook flee;
And the light gales faintly quiver
In the dark and shadowy tree.

Spring waked her tribes to bloom,
and on the green sward dance.
Thou hast smitten them to the tomb,
With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on,
Singing 'midst shocks of corn,
Thou hastenest to be gone,
As if joy might not be borne.

Summer:

And dost thou of me complain,
Thou, who, with dreamy eyes,
In the forest's moss hast lain,
Praising my silvery skies?

Thou, who didst deem divine
The shrill cicada's tune,
When the odors of the pine
Gushed through the woods at noon?

I have run my fervid race;
I have wrought my task once more;
I have fill'd each fruitful place
With a plenty that runs o'er.

There is treasure for the garner;
There is honey with the bee;
And, oh! thou thankless scorner,
There's a parting boon for thee.

Soon as, in misty sadness,
Sere Autumn yields his reign.
Winter, with stormy madness,
Shall chase thee from the plain.

Then shall these scenes Elysian
Bright in thy spirit burn;
And each summer-thought and vision
Be thine till I return.

~~ 
William Howitt (1792-1879)
from The Desolation of Eyam; the Emigrant: A tale of the American woods; and other poems, 1827.

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Howitt biography