Early Summer / Ellwood Roberts

Early Summer

Full of joy is early Summer,
    Growth and warmth and golden light;
Every day is crowned with beauty,
    Full of loveliness the night.
Dazzling sunshine brings the roses,
    Fills the whole bright world with bloom;
Day and night rejoice together,
    Banished now are doubt and gloom.

Skies serene and loving woo us
    To the woods and fields to-day;
Who would linger long when Nature
    Calls him to her feast away?
Earth a veritable Eden
    In the glowing sunlight gleams,
Life a grand and noble epic,
    Viewed from such a standpoint seems.

Gladness reigns the wide world over,
    Early Summer's golden light
Fills each bosom with thanksgiving
    For the season's blessings bright.
Happy harvest days are coming,
    Full of joy, throughout the land;
Where the fields of grain are waving,
    Full-eared wheat in shocks shall stand.

Perfect days that pass too quickly,
    One by one they come and go,
Each in turn reveals rare blessing,
    Beauty passing all below.
Balmy air and bright green landscape,
    Glowing eve and dewy dawn;
Sunlight's gold on field and forest —
    We shall grieve when these are gone.

Joyous time to him that loveth
    Growth and warmth and golden light;
Day is full of blessed beauty,
    Full of peace the dewy night.
Early Summer! time of roses,
    All the earth is filled with bloom;
Every heart in thee rejoices,
    Banished now are doubt and gloom.

~~
Ellwood Roberts (1846-1921)
From Lyrics of Quakerism, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ellwood Roberts biography