July / Folgore da San Geminiano

from Of the Months

July

For July, in Siena, by the willow-tree,
    I give you barrels of white Tuscan wine
    In ice far down your cellars stored supine;
And morn and eve to eat in company
Of those vast jellies dear to you and me;
    Of partridges and youngling pheasants sweet,
    Boil'd capons, sovereign kids: and let their treat
Be veal and garlic, with whom these agree.
Let time slip by, till by-and-hy, all day;
    And never swelter through the heat at all,
But move at ease at home, sound, cool, and gay;
    And wear sweet-colour'd robes that lightly fall;
And keep your tables set in fresh array.
    Not coaxing spleen to be your seneschal.

~~
Folgore da San Geminiano (?1270-1332?)
translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
from The Early Italian Poets, 1861

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

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Folgore da San Geminiano biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti biography

Limbourg brothers, from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 

ca. 1402-1416. Wikimedia Commons.