In August / Ethelwyn Wetherald

In August

Now when the grove is stifled to the core,
    And all the parchèd grass is summer-killed,
    I think of vehement March, and how she filled
These arid roadsides with a murmurous pour
Of rushing streams from an exhaustless store.
    This breathless air to tropic slumber stilled,
    Recalls those early passionate winds that thrilled
The spirit, blending with the water’s roar.

Just as in rich and dusty-leavèd age
    The soul goes back to brood on swelling buds
    Of hope, desire, and dream, in childhood's clime,
So I turn backward to the spring-lit page,
    And hear with freshening heart the deep-voiced floods,
    That to the winds give their melodious rhyme.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from Tangled in Stars, 1902

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

Patrick Roper, Dry fields during heatwave, August 2018. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

See also: "A March Night" by Ethelwyn Wetherald

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography

August Child / Marion Strobel

August Child

Harold Harvey (1874–1941), Two young girls

 with a butterfly, 1929. Wikimedia Commons.

She would watch a butterfly
Yellow-filmed against the sun,
Blue against the sky.

She would keep the broken wings –
There were gold ones, there was one
Brown with scarlet rings.

And no matter if the heat
Ran like flame upon the land,
She was there, and sweet.

Color moving, color drifting
Was her yellow dress. Her hand
Was color lifting.

 
With the sky more blue than blue,
She was more and less than true,
Who was always more than fair
Butterflied upon the air.

~~
Marion Strobel (1895-1967)
from Poetry, February 1928

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

Marion Strobel biography

August / Mary Slade

August

I come! I come! and the waving field
Its wealth of golden grain shall yield.
In the hush and heat of glowing noon,
The insects' hum is the only tune;
For the merriest birds forget to sing,
And sit in the shade with drooping wing.

But see! how the purpling grapes hang high,
And ripen beneath my sunny sky!
And see! how the fruits of the bending tree
Turn blushing and rosy cheeks to me!
And soon shall your garners be over-full
With gifts from the August bountiful.

~~
Mary Slade (1826-1882)

from The Children's Hour, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Mary Slade biography

August / Annette Wynne

August

August days are hot and still,
Not a breath on house or hill,
Not a breath on height or plain,
Weary travelers cry for rain;
But the children quickly find
A shady place quite to their mind;
And there all quietly they stay,
Until the sun has gone away,—
August is too hot for 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]

Photo br Daniela Dimitrova, Pixabay.. Free for use under the Pixabay Content License.

[September] 

Annette Wynne biography

Heat / H.D.

from Garden

II

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air —
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat —
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

~~
H.D. (1886-1961)
from Sea Garden, 1916

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

H.D. biography

"Heat" recited by Zither P. Oxblood. Courtesy Graveyard Poetry.

poem while watching dali paint the iridescent sky / John Sweet

poem while watching dali paint the iridescent sky

in the absolute heat,
in the shadows of trees,
                              of empty houses,
this silence built from soft breezes,
from freeway traffic on the
other side of the river
this moment defined by
sunlight on chrome

by the absence of all pain

spend your lifetime buried
beneath belief and the loss of
faith becomes inevitable

dig at your flesh to try and
find the better person buried
down deep inside and all you do
                                               is bleed

~~
John Sweet
from in the palace of dying light, 2011

[All rights reserved by the author - used with permision]

John Sweet biography

When noon is blazing on the town / Robert Hillyer

from Days and Seasons

VIII

When noon is blazing on the town,
The fields are loud with droning flies,
The people pull their curtains down,
And all the houses shut their eyes.

The palm leaf drops from your mother's hand
And she dozes there in a darkened room.
Outside there is silence on the land,
And only poppies dare to bloom.

Open the door and steal away
Through grain and briar shoulder high,
There are secrets hid in the heart of day,
In the hush and slumber of July.

Your face will burn a fiery red,
Your feet will drag through dusty flame,
Your brain turn molten in your head,
And you will wish you never came.

O never mind, go on, go on,—
There is a brook where willows lean;
To weave deep caverns from the sun,

And there the grass grows cool and green.

And there is one as cool as grass,
Lying beneath the willow tree,
Counting the dragon flies that pass,
And talking to the humble bee.

She has not stirred since morning came,
She does not know how in the town
The earth shakes dizzily with flame,
And all the curtains are drawn down.

Sit down beside her; she can tell
The strangest secrets you would hear,
And cool as water in a well,
Her words flow down upon your ear….

She speaks no more, but in your hair
Her fingers soft as lullabies
Fold up your senses unaware,
Into a poppy paradise.

And when you wake, the evening mist
Is rising up to float the hill,
And you will say, "The mouth I kissed,
The voice I heard … a dream … but still

"The grass is matted where she lay,
I feel her fingers in my hair"….
But your lamp is bright across the way,
And your mother knits in the rocking chair.

~~

Robert Hillyer (1895-1961), 1919

from The Five Books of Youth, 1920

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

Robert Hillyer biography

June Rain / Richard Aldington

June Rain

Hot, a griffin's mouth of flame,
The sun rasped with his golden tongue
The city streets, till men and walls shrivelled;
The dusty air stagnated.

At the third noon a wind rippled,
A wide sea silently breaking;
A thick veil of rain-drops
Hid the sun and the hard blue.

A grey garment of rain,
Cold as hoar frost in April,
Enwrapped us.

~~
Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
from Images: Old and new, 1916

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

Richard Aldington biography

The Poplar in August / Frances Cornford

The Poplar in August

Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
Shivering and bending,
Have you shade for dusty feet,
Poplar, poplar, in the heat?
Shade is cool and sleep is sweet,

And roads unending.
Poplar, poplar, in the heat,
Shivering and bending.

~~
Frances Cornford (1886-1960)
From Poems, 1910

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

Frances Cornford biography

A Song to Mithras / Rudyard Kipling

A Song to Mithras

(Hymn of the 30th Legion: circa A.D. 350.)

Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!
'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'
Now as the names are answered and the guards are marched away,
Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat.
Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour — now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!

Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main —
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!

Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads thou hast fashioned — all of them lead to the Light:
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!

~~
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
from Songs from Books, 1912

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

Rudyard Kipling biography

"A Song to Mithras" sung, film by Matthew O'Connor, courtesy Griffin Distribution.

Heat / Archibald Lampman

Heat

From plains that reel to southward, dim,
  The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
  Beyond, and melt into the glare.
Upward half-way, or it may be
  Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
  With idly clacking wheels.

By his cart's side the wagoner
  Is slouching slowly at his ease,
Half-hidden in the windless blur
  Of white dust puffing to his knees.
This wagon on the height above,
  From sky to sky on either hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
  In all the heat-held land.

Beyond me in the fields the sun
  Soaks in the grass and hath his will;
I count the marguerites one by one;
  Even the buttercups are still.
On the brook yonder not a breath
  Disturbs the spider or the midge.
The water-bugs draw close beneath
  The cool gloom of the bridge.

Where the far elm-tree shadows flood
  Dark patches in the burning grass,
The cows, each with her peaceful cud,
  Lie waiting for the heat to pass.
From somewhere on the slope near by
  Into the pale depth of the noon
A wandering thrush slides leisurely
  His thin revolving tune.

In intervals of dreams I hear
  The cricket from the droughty ground;
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear
  A small innumerable sound.
I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze:
  The burning sky-line blinds my sight:
The woods far off are blue with haze;
  The hills are drenched in light.

And yet to me not this or that
  Is always sharp or always sweet;
In the sloped shadow of my hat
  I lean at rest, and drain the heat;
Nay more, I think some blessed power
  Hath brought me wandering idly here:
In the full furnace of this hour
  My thoughts grow keen and clear.

~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 1887
from Among the Millet, and other poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

August / Elinor Wylie

 
August

Why should this Negro insolently stride
Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet?
Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,
Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed,
Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,
Hot with a superfluity of heat,
Like a great brazier borne along the street
By captive leopards, black and burning pied.
Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,
With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none
Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,
Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream
By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun
Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?

~~
Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)
from Nets to Catch the Wind, 1921

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

Elinor Wylie biography

"August" read by Dan Isaksson for LibriVox. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

(Poem begins at 05:10)