July in the West / James Newton Matthews

July in the West

DAY

A rhythm of reapers; a flashing
Of steels in the meadows; a lashing
Of sheaves in the wheatlands; a glitter
Of grain-builded streets, and a twitter
Of birds in a motionless sky,—
And that is July!

A rustle of corn-leaves; a tinkle
Of bells on the hills; a twinkle
Of sheep in the lowlands; a bevy
Of bees where the clover is heavy;
A butterfly blundering by,—
And that is July!


NIGHT

A moon-flooded prairie; a straying
Of light-hearted lovers; a baying
Of far away watchdogs; a dreaming 

Of brown-fisted farmers; a gleaming
Of fireflies eddying nigh,—
And that is July!

A babble of brooks that deliver
Their flower-purpled waves to the river;
A moan in the marshes; in thickets
A dolorous droning of crickets,
Attuned to a whippoorwill's cry,—
And that is July!

~~
James Newton Matthews (1852-1910)
from The Lute of Life, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George Stubbs (1724-1806), Reapers, 1785. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

James Newton Matthews biography

The Voice / Theodore Roethke

The Voice

One feather is a bird,
I claim; one tree, a wood;
In her low voice I heard
More than a mortal should;
And so I stood apart,
Hidden in my own heart.

And yet I roamed out where
Those notes went, like the bird,
Whose thin song hung in air,
Diminished, yet still heard:
I lived with open sound,
Aloft, and on the ground.

That ghost was my own choice,
The shy cerulean bird;
It sang with her true voice,
And it was I who heard
A slight voice reply;
I heard; and only I.

Desire exults the ear:
Bird, girl, and ghostly tree,
The earth, the solid air –
Their slow song sang in me;
The long noon pulsed away,
Like any summer day.

~~
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
from Words for the Wind, 1957

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Theodore Roethke biography

"The Voice" read by Theodore Roethke. Courtesy Theodore Roethke - Topic.

(Poem begins at 1:40)

Summer Morn in New Hampshire / Claude McKay

 

Summer Morn in New Hampshire

All yesterday it poured, and all night long
    I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
    Upon the grass like running children’s feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
    Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
    And nestled soft against the earth’s wet breast.
But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
    The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
    The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
    But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
    And I was blind with hunger for your love.

~~
Claude McKay (1889-1948)
from Harlem Shadows, 1922

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada the United States, and the European Union]

Claude McKay biography

"Summer Morn in New Hampshire" read by Narad.

Courtesy The Mother & Sri Aurobindo: E-library.

July / Annette Wynne

July

July's for Independence Day,
For flags and speeches and for play,
For hiding deep in meadow grass
And watching flying creatures pass,
For sailing boats on little seas,
Where just the smallest summer breeze
Can blow; for picking flowers any day;
July comes for flags and play.

~~
Annette Wynne (1889-1952)

from For Days and Days: A year-round treasury of child verse, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

MissLunaRose12, Art by an autistic 11-year-old depicting people lighting sparklers. 

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[August]

Annette Wynne biography

June / Edgar Guest

June

June is here, the month of roses, month of brides and month of bees,
Weaving garlands for our lassies, whispering love songs in the trees,
Painting scenes of gorgeous splendor, canvases no man could brush,
Changing scenes from early morning till the sunset's crimson flush.

June is here, the month of blossoms, month of roses white and red,
Wet with dew and perfume-laden, nodding wheresoe'er we tread;
Come the bees to gather honey, all the lazy afternoon;
Flowers and lassies, men and meadows, love alike the month of June.

Month of love and month of sunshine, month of happiness and song,
Month that cheers the sad wayfarer as he plods the road along;
Spreading out a velvet carpet, green and yellow, for his feet,
And affording for his rest hours many a cool and sweet retreat.

~~
Edgar Guest (1881-1959)
from Just Folks, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Edgar Guest biography

Tamara Menzies, Bridal Bouquet, 2017. CC0 1.0 public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

The Dance of Death / Jane G. Austin

The Dance of Death

 
And now the old world holds high holiday
And pranks herself in garments brave and gay;
June roses burst from folded buds of May;
The air is full of perfume and of blithe birds' lay.
Come then, my heart, let us fare forth with these,
In all this joy dull sorrow finds surcease;
My sullen lute, beneath these blooming trees
And swept by fingers of the odorous breeze,
Sure thy mute strings will wake to life to-day
And sing to June a blithesome roundelay.

From out the wood there crept a shadow still,
Before it, died the sunshine off the hill;
It swept the lute, and on its icy breath
Faltered a song, a song of Love and Death.

O dance, ye rose-crowned hours of June,
    Beneath the merry sun,
And dance beneath the loving moon
    When jocund day is done.

Bright, bright, the sunshine and the moon
    But bitter black the shade:
Beneath thy roses, blithesome June,
    Are there no dead men laid?

Dim wraiths of dead and buried Junes,
    Sweet dreams and hearts aglow,
Of brighter suns and sweeter moons
    Of hopes dead long ago?

O joyous June, heap high your flowers,
    You cannot hide the graves beneath;
Sing, birds, and dance, ye merry hours,

    Tread with my ghosts the Dance of Death.

With one wild note of rapture or of pain
The lute-strings snapped and all was still again.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: June, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

FrDr, Danse Macabre (Tallinn), 2016. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[July]

Jane G. Austin biography

Song / Trumbull Stickney

Song

A bud has burst on the upper bough
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
I know where the pale green grasses show
By a tiny runnel, off the way,
And the earth is wet.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Not yet.”)

I nabbed the fly in a briar rose
(The linnet to-day in my heart did sing);
Last night, my head tucked under my wing,
I dreamed of a green moon-moth that glows
Thro’ ferns of June.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “So soon?”)

Good-bye, for the pretty leaves are down
(The linnet sang in my heart today);
The last gold bit of upland’s mown,
And most of summer has blown away
Thro’ the garden gate.
(A cuckoo said in my brain: “Too late.”)

~~
Trumbull Stickney (1874-1904)
from Dramatic Verses, 1902

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Trumbull Stickney biography

    "Song (Stickney version)" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

Summer Past / John Gray

Summer Past

    (To Oscar Wilde)

    There was the summer. There
    Warm hours of leaf-lipped song,
    And dripping amber sweat.
            O sweet to see
The great trees condescend to cast a pearl
Down to the myrtles; and the proud leaves curl
            In ecstasy.

    Fruit of a quest, despair.
    Smart of a sullen wrong.
    Where may they hide them yet?
            One hour, yet one,
To find the mossgod lurking in his nest,
To see the naiads' floating hair, caressed
            By fragrant sun-

    Beams. Softly lulled the eves
    The song-tired birds to sleep,
    That other things might tell
            Their secrecies.
The beetle humming neath the fallen leaves.
Deep in what hollow do the stern gods keep
Their bitter silence? By what listening well
            Where holy trees,

Song-set, unfurl eternally the sheen
            Of restless green?

~~

John Gray (1866-1934)
from Silverpoints, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the Unites States, and the European Union]

John Gray biography

 Silverpoints read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

("Summer Past" begins at 13:12)

September / Michael Field

September

But why is Nature at such heavy pause,
And the earth slowly ceasing to revolve?
Only the lapping tides abide their laws,
And very softly on the sand dissolve.
The fruit is gathered – not an apple drops:
In little mists above the garden bed
The petals of the last gold dahlia shed;
The spider central 'mid his wreathed dewdrops!
Oh still, oh quiet!– and no issue found;
No laying up to rest of callow things,
Or scale, or sheaf, or tissue of armed wings:
Open the tilth, open the fallow ground!
The fragrance of the air that has no home
Spreads vague and dissolute, nor cares to roam.

~~
Michael Field

from Wild Honey from Various Thyme, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Michael Field biography

"September" read for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

For Once, Then, Something / Robert Frost

For Once, Then, Something

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths — and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

~~
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
from New Hampshire, 1923

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Robert Frost biography

"For Once, Then, Something" read by Patrick Donnelly. Courtesy The Frost Place.

Morning in August / James Herbert Morse

Morning in August

Fragrant odor of the dawn,
Sweet incense to waking souls,
While the fresh dew spreads the lawn,
And your spirit day controls,
Let me, underneath this tree
Standing, be possessed of thee.

See the robin in a dream
Poising on a grassy bank;
Hear, beneath, the singing stream,
In a meadow dewy-dank;
See the mother-pearly tips
Of the pink-white sorrel's lips.

Now adown the hilly slope
Like a father steps the sun,
And the pretty blossoms ope
Wide their eyelids, one by one;
And they seem to stir and say
Lisped prayers unto the day.

He who sleeps at dawn is dead
To more wonders than he knows;
Let me forth and early tread
Where the sunlit water flows,
Where the elm at dewy dawn
Flings his shadow down the lawn.

Let me feel, and yet be still;
Let me take, and yet not give;
Drink, till I have drunk my fill;
Then anew go forth and live.
Man has little honeyed pleasure
Unmixed in his manhood's measure.

~~
James Herbert Morse (1841-1923)
from Summer Haven Songs, 1886

James Herbert Morse biography

Victoria Lee Croasdell, August Dawn in North Dakota, 2013.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

From Piccadilly in August / John Freeman

Arthur Hacker (1858-1919), A Wet Night at 

Piccadilly Circus, 1910. Wikimedia Commons.

From Piccadilly in August

Now the trees rest: the moon hath taught them sleep.
Like drowsy wings of bats are all their leaves,
Clinging together. Girls at ease who fold
Fair hands upon white necks and thro' dusk fields
Walk all content,— of them the trees have taken
Their way of evening rest; the yellow moon
With her pale gold hath lit their dreams that lisp
On the wind's murmurous lips.
                                                          And low beyond
Burn those bright lamps beneath the moon more bright,
Lamps that but flash and sparkle and light not
The inward eye and musing thought, nor reach
Where, poplar-like, that tall-built campanile
Lifts to the neighbouring moon her head and feels
The pale gold like an ocean laving her.

~~
John Freeman (1880-1929)
from Fifty Poems, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

John Freeman biography

"From Piccadilly in August" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

Mid-August / Duncan Campbell Scott

Mid-August

From the upland hidden,
    Where the hill is sunny
    Tawny like pure honey
    In the August heat, 

Memories float unbidden
    Where the thicket serries
    Fragrant with ripe berries
    And the milk-weed sweet.

Like a prayer-mat holy
    Are the patterned mosses
    Which the twin-flower crosses
    With her flowerless vine;
In fragile melancholy
    The pallid ghost flowers hover
    As if to guard and cover
    The shadow of a shrine.

Where the pine-linnet lingered
    The pale water searches,
    The roots of gleaming birches
    Draw silver from the lake;
The ripples, liquid-fingered,
    Plucking the root-layers,
    Fairy like lute players
    Lulling music make.

O to lie here brooding
    Where the pine-tree column
    Rises dark and solemn
    To the airy lair,
Where, the day eluding,
    Night is couched dream laden,
    Like a deep witch-maiden
    Hidden in her hair.

In filmy evanescence
    Wraithlike scents assemble,
    Then dissolve and tremble
    A little until they die;
Spirits of the florescence
    Where the bees searched and tarried
    Till the blossoms all were married
    In the days before July.

Light has lost its splendour,
    Light refined and sifted,
    Cool light and dream drifted
    Ventures even where,
(Seeping silver tender)
    In the dim recesses,
    Trembling mid her tresses,
    Hides the maiden hair.

Covered with the shy-light,
    Filling in the hushes,
    Slide the tawny thrushes
    Calling to their broods,
Hoarding till the twilight
    The song that made for noon-days
    Of the amorous June days
    Preludes and interludes.

The joy that I am feeling
    Is there something in it
    Unlike the warble the linnet
    Phrases and intones?
Or is a like thought stealing
    With a rapture fine, free
    Through the happy pine tree
    Ripening her cones?

In some high existence
    In another planet
    Where their poets cannot
    Know our birds and flowers,
Does the same persistence
    Give the dreams they issue
    Something like the tissue
    Of these dreams of ours?

O to lie athinking —
    Moods and whims! I fancy
    Only necromancy
    Could the web unroll,
Only somehow linking
    Beauties that meet and mingle
    In this quiet dingle
    With the beauty of the whole.

~~
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from Lundy's Lane, and other poems, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

Jared Rover, Cabot Trail Nova Scotia, August 2017. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A Song in August / Francis Sherman

A Song in August

O gold is the West and gold the river-waters
Washing past the sides of my yellow birch canoe,
Gold are the great drops that fall from my paddle,
The far-off hills cry a golden word of you.

I can almost see you! Where its own shadow
Creeps down the hill’s side, gradual and slow.
There you stand waiting; the goldenrod and thistle
Glad of you beside them — the fairest thing they know.

Down the worn foot-path, the tufted pines behind you,
Grey sheep between,— unfrightened as you pass;
Swift through the sun-glow, I to my loved one
Come, striving hard against the long trailing grass.

Soon shall I ground on the shining gravel-reaches:
Through the thick alders you will break your way:
Then your hand in mine, and our path is on the waters,—
For us the long shadows and the end of day.

Whither shall we go? See, over to the westward,
An hour of precious gold standeth still for you and me;
Still gleams the grain, all yellow on the uplands;
West is it, or East, O Love that you would be?

West now, or East? For, underneath the moonrise,
Also it is fair; and where the reeds are tall,
And the only little noise is the sound of quiet waters,
Heavy, like the rain, we shall hear the duck-oats fall.

And perhaps we shall see, rising slowly from the driftwood,
A lone crane go over to its inland nest:
Or a dark line of ducks will come in across the islands
And sail overhead to the marshes of the west.

Now a little wind rises up for our returning;
Silver grows the East as the West grows grey;
Shadows on the waters, shaded are the meadows,
The firs on the hillside — naught so dark as they.

Yet we have known the light!— Was ever such an August?
Your hand leaves mine; and the new stars gleam
As we separately go to our dreams of opened heaven,
— The golden dawn shall tell you that you did not dream.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography 

Canoeing on the Upper Tomoka River, Florida, 1905. Wikimedia Commons.

August, 1918 / Maurice Baring

August, 1918

(In a French Village.)

I hear the tinkling of the cattle bell,
    In the broad stillness of the afternoon;
    High in the cloudless haze the harvest moon
Is pallid as the phantom of a shell.
A girl is drawing water from a well,
    I hear the clatter of her wooden shoon;
    Two mothers to their sleeping babies croon,
And the hot village feels the drowsy spell.

Sleep, child, the Angel of Death his wings has spread;
    His engines scour the land, the sea, the sky;
    And all the weapons of Hell’s armoury
Are ready for the blood that is their bread;
    And many a thousand men to-night must die,
So many that they will not count the Dead.

 ~~
Maurice Baring (1874-1945)
from Poems, 1914-1919, 1920

Maurice Baring biography 

"August 1918" read by Nemo for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

(Poem begins at 21:00)

As August Comes / Clinton Scollard

As August Comes

In dull monotony of heat
    The hazy hills and lowlands lie,
And billow till they blend and meet
    With lurid amplitudes of sky.

The locust's shrilly fife-note cleaves
    The fervid air, a knife of sound,
As August comes with poppy leaves
    Around his swarthy temples bound.

~~
Clinton Scollard (1860-1932)
from  Old and New World Lyrics, 1888 

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Clinton Scollard biography

Charles J. Sharp, Garden locust (Acanthacris ruficornis). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A July Noon / Helen Gray Cone

A July Noon

The sumachs, noiseless, by the still, hot road
Stand up as guards, with blood-red soldier plumes.
How light the hill-blue, clear of cloudy glooms!
How lone the land, with summer overflowed!
Dry crickets grate; a bee takes larger load
With low, pleased muttering, where the wild-rose blooms;
The bovine breath of sleeping fields perfumes
Warm air, with drifts of wayside spicery sowed.
Good earth, how glad a thing it is to be
Part of this full, yet placid life of thine,
Close to thy heart as humblest creatures press!
To claim our kinship with the clod,— resign,
One sunny hour, the spiritual stress
That leads, though lifts, our lives away from thee!

~~
Helen Gray Cone (1859-1934)
from Through the Year with the Poets: July, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Gray Cone biography

Nxr-at, Maize fields in July, Oststeiermark, 2009. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Summer Storm / Duncan Campbell Scott

Summer Storm

Last night a storm fell on the world
    From heights of drouth and heat,
The surly clouds for weeks were furled,
    The air could only sway and beat.

The beetles clattered at the blind,
    The hawks fell twanging from the sky,
The west unrolled a feathery wind,
    And the night fell sullenly.

The storm leaped roaring from its lair,
    Like the shadow of doom,
The poignard lightning searched the air,
    The thunder ripped the shattered gloom.

The rain came down with a roar like fire,
    Full-voiced and clamorous and deep,
The weary world had its heart's desire,
    And fell asleep.

And now in the morning early,
    The clouds are sailing by
Clearly, oh! so clearly,
    The distant mountains lie.

The wind is very mild and slow,
    The clouds obey his will,
They part and part and onward go,
    Travelling together still.

'Tis very sweet to be alive,
    On a morning that 's so fair,
For nothing seems to stir or strive,
    In the unconscious air.

A tawny thrush is in the wood,
    Ringing so wild and free; 

Only one bird has a blither mood,
    The white-throat on the tree.

~~
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
from The Magic House, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Duncan Campbell Scott biography

Paul Harrison, Lightning Storm over Kingston, Ontario, 2011. 

CC BY-SA 4/0. Wikimedia Commons.

July / William Morris

July

from The Earthly Paradise (1870)

Fair was the morn to-day, the blossom's scent
Floated across the fresh grass, and the bees
With low vexed song from rose to lily went,
A gentle wind was in the heavy trees,
And thine eyes shone with joyous memories;
Fair was the early morn, and fair wert thou,
And I was happy, — Ah, be happy now!

Peace and content without us, love within
That hour there was, now thunder and wild rain,
Have wrapped the cowering world, and foolish sin,
And nameless pride, have made us wise in vain;
Ah. love! although the morn shall come again,
And on new rosebuds the new sun shall smile,
Can we regain what we have lost meanwhile?

E'en now the west grows clear of storm and threat,
But midst the lightning did the fair sun die:
Ah! he shall rise again for ages yet,
He cannot waste his life; but thou and I,
Who knows if next morn this felicity
My lips may feel, or if thou still shalt live
This seal of love renewed once more to give?

~~
William Morris (1834-1896)
from Through the Year with the Poets: July 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Morris biography

John Sutton, Radbourne: a July evening, 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Morning of My Life / Will Dockery

Morning of My Life

Walking down my street
she shakes her head
in the summer heat.
We met back at
Richards Junior High,
talking to the Grass-man
all about the Taxman.
I never wanted to
have to say goodbye.
        She walked right in
        into the morning of my life.

All around the curfew
barefoot in the wet dew,
we chased a dream
we could never realize.
Talking about Black Betty,
I felt like J. Paul Getty;
I never knew a kiss
could get me this high.
        She walked right past
        through the morning of my life.

When she sang that song to me,
her secret longing to be free,
on the corner
in soft summer rain.
Bought America in a jar,
filled with samples from afar.
I felt her vibe shake me
like a steam train.
        She walked right through
        deep in the morning of my life.

She shook me,
she really woke me up,
perfect sky
and her big blue eyes.
She smiled my blues away.
Pretty baby, I wish
you could have stayed.

Then she kind of moved away;
life called
and we could not stay.
Sweet little lady
I think you've seen that movie too.
Saying goodbye to a friend
you never think it is the end.
I never thought
you were gone to stay.
        She walked right out
        out of the morning of my life.

~~
Will Dockery, 2016
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019 

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

"In the Morning of My Life" (c) 2025 by Will Dockery and Brian Mallard. All rights reserved.