You say you love, but with a voice / John Keats

    I

You say you love; but with a voice
Chaster than a nun’s, who singeth
The soft vespers to herself
While the chime-bell ringeth —
O love me truly!


    II

You say you love; but with a smile
Cold as sunrise in September,
As you were Saint Cupid’s nun,
And kept his weeks of Ember.
O love me truly!


    III

You say you love; but then your lips
Coral tinted teach no blisses,
More than coral in the sea —
They never pout for kisses —
O love me truly!


    IV

You say you love; but then your hand
No soft squeeze for squeeze returneth;
It is like a statue’s, dead, —
While mine for passion burneth —
O love me truly!


    V

O breathe a word or two of fire!
Smile, as if those words should burn me,
Squeeze as lovers should — O kiss
And in thy heart inurn me!
O love me truly!

~~
John Keats (1795-1821)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Keats biography

"You say you love, but with a voice" read by Steven Brown. Courtesy Ezra Welser.

Sweet September Days / George W. Doneghy

Sweet September Days

    I

There's a something in the atmosphere, in sweet September days,
That mantles all the landscape with its languid, dreamy haze;
And you see the leaves a-dropping, in a lazy kind of way,
Where the maple trees are standing in their Summer-time array.

    II

There's a yellowish tinge a-creeping over Nature's emerald sheen,
And the cattle stand, half-sleeping, in the middle of the stream
Where the glassy pool is shaded by the overhanging limb,
And the pebbly bottom's glinting where the silvery minnows swim.

    III

The tasseled corn is nodding, and the crow on drowsy wing
Is sailing o'er the orchard where the ripening apples swing,
And the fleecy clouds are floating in the azure of the sky,
And the gentle breeze is sighing as it's idly wafted by.

    IV

The cantaloupes are ripening in their yellow golden rinds;
And the melons, round and juicy, are a-clinging to the vines;
And the merry, laughing children, in their happy hour of play,
Are a-romping in the meadow and a-sliding down the hay.

    V

The busy bees are buzzing where the grapes with purple blush,
And the hanging bunches tempting with their weight the arbor crush,
And the blue jays are a-wrangling in the wood across the road,
Where the hickory boughs are bending 'neath an extra heavy load.

    VI

Let your poets keep a-singing about the Springtime gay,
And the blossoms and the flowers in the merry month of May —
But the early Autumn splendor, with its sweet September days,
Eclipses boasted Springtime in a thousand kind of ways!

~~
George W. Doneghy (1848-1917)
from The Old Hanging Fork, and other poems, 1897

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

George W. Doneghy biography

John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902), September Sunshine, ca. 1892. 

Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

September / H. Cordelia Ray

from The Procession of the Seasons

September

With what a gentle sound
The autumn leaves drop to the ground;
With many-colored dyes,
They greet our watching eyes.
Rosy and russet, how they fall!
Throwing o'er earth a leafy pall.

~~
H. Cordelia Ray (1852-1916)
from Poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[October]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

John Fowler, Falling Leaves (detail), September 2012.  CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The Passing of Summer / James Berry Bensel

The Passing of Summer

She gathers up her robes of green and gold,
    The fair, sweet Summer, and across the land
    We see her go, with outward-reaching hand
Whose magic spreads its beauties manifold
Along the region by her sway controlled.
    The trees, o'erhung with gorgeous banners, stand
    To see her pass them with a last command,
While all the world is draped in splendor bold.

She passes onward, from the lowlands first,
    Then lays a reverent touch on every hill,
        A smile of promise lighting up her face;
The brooks are fain to quench her fateful thirst,
    And glowing carpets line her roadway still,
    The splendid queen departing from her place.

~~
James Berry Bensel (1856-1886)

from In the King's Garden, and other poems, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

James Berry Bensel biography

"Tiandra, the Summer Queen", 2015. CC BY-SA 3.0, The Time of Fire.

September / Edward Bliss Reed

September

Crickets are making
    The merriest din,
All the fields waking
    With shrill violin.

Now all the swallows
    Debate when to go;
In the valleys and hollows
    The mists are like snow.

Dahlia are glowing
    In purple and red
Where once were growing
    Pale roses instead.

Piled up leaves smoulder,
    All hazy the noon,
Nights have grown colder,
    The frost will some soon.

Early lamps burning,
    So soon the night falls,
Leaves, crimson turning,
    Make bright the stone walls.

Summer recalling
    At turn of the year,
Fruit will be falling,
    September is here.

~~
Edward Bliss Read (1872-1940)
from Sea Moods, and other poems, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain]

Edward Bliss Read biography

Ulisse Albiati, "Sight VI". CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A Summer Day / Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Summer Day

    I

The dawn laughs out on orient hills
And dances with the diamond rills;
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs
The silken, beaded gossamers;
In the wide valleys, lone and fair,
Lyrics are piped from limpid air,
And, far above, the pine trees free
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea.
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway
With hope and courage of the day.


    II

Noon, hiving sweets of sun and flower,
Has fallen on dreams in wayside bower,
Where bees hold honeyed fellowship
With the ripe blossom of her lip;
All silent are her poppied vales
And all her long Arcadian dales,
Where idleness is gathered up
A magic draught in summer's cup.
Come, let us give ourselves to dreams
By lisping margins of her streams.


    III

Adown the golden sunset way
The evening comes in wimple gray;
By burnished shore and silver lake
Cool winds of ministration wake;
O'er occidental meadows far
There shines the light of moon and star,
And sweet, low-tinkling music rings
About the lips of haunted springs.
In quietude of earth and air
'Tis meet we yield our souls to prayer.

~~
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)
from The Watchman, and other poems, 1916

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

Lucy Maud Montgomery biography

Song of the Summer Rain / Lilian Leveridge

Song of the Summer Rain

When the winds of dawn go sadly, with a shiver and a moan,
Through the dusty, dewless verdure of the plain,
They are calling to a comrade, for they will not sing alone;
They are seeking for the Lady of the Rain.

                Wooing, pleading, hear them say,
                “Come and dance with us to-day!
        We will sing our newest, loveliest refrain;
                But our music is all dumb,
                Harps are muted till you come,
        Blessing-laden, gracious Lady of the Rain.”

They have called her; now they listen; all the breezes hold their breath.
Shall the lover-winds of summer woo in vain?
Not a whisper, not a murmur! Woods and fields are still as death;
Birds are faint, and blossoms languish for the rain,

                Hark! a low mysterious sound,
                Rises tremulous from the ground.
        She is coming with the tempest in her train.
                Herald winds are bugling clear;
                Leaflets quiver as in fear:
        “O, deal gently with us, Lady of the Rain!”

Now she comes with loud, wild laughter; thunders, lightnings shake the earth,
While the tall trees shriek and bow themselves in pain;
But a broken, tear-wet blossom quells her mad, unholy mirth.
“I am sorry!” cries the Lady of the Rain.

                Down the valley slinks the thunder,
                Hiding rocks and caverns under,
        And a rainbow hangs above the greening plain.
                Now on silver-sandalled feet,
                And with music rare and sweet,
        Loved, forgiven, flits our Lady of the Rain.

~~
Lilian Leveridge (1879-1953)
from A Breath of the Woods, 1926

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

Lilian Leveridge biography

Tomasz Sienecki, Rain, 2003. CC BY 3.0,Wikimedia Commons.