A Summer Morning / George Henry Boker

XXXVIII

With song of birds, and hum of bees,
    And odorous breath of swinging flowers,
With fluttering herbs and swaying trees,
    Begin the early morning hours.

The warm tide of the southern air
    Swims round, with gentle rise and fall,
And, burning through a golden glare,
    The sun looks broadly over all.

So fair and fresh the landscape stands,
    So vital, so beyond decay,
It looks as though God's shaping hands
    Had just been raised and drawn away.

The holy baptism of the rain
    Yet lingers, like a special grace;
For I can see an aureole plain
    About the world's transfigured face.

The moments come in dreamy bliss,
    In dreamy bliss they pause and pass:
It seems not hard, on days like this,
    Dear Lord, to lie beneath the grass!

~~

George Henry Boker (1823-1890)
from The Book of the Dead, 1882

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Henry Boker biography

Lowdown, "Manor Park in Markowice", 2013. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.