WITH a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -- Midsummer days! midsummer days! The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze, While the west from a rapture of sunset rights, Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -- Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams, The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -- Midsummer days! midsummer days! In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, All secret shadows and mystic lights, Late lovers murmurous linger and gaze -- Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! There's a music of bells from the trampling teams, Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze, The rich ripe rose as with incense steams -- Midsummer days! midsummer days! A soul from the honeysuckle strays, And the nightingale as from prophet heights Sings to the earth of her million Mays -- Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! ENVOY. And it's oh! for my dear, and the charm that stays -- Midsummer days! midsummer days! It's oh! for my love, and the dark that plights -- Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NURSING HOME: THE DOLL by KAREN SWENSON THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET by ALBERT GORTON GREENE NEGRO by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES LAMENT OF THE FRONTIER GUARD by LI PO SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 119 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI WRITTEN IN IRELAND by MARY (CUMBERLAND) ALCOCK |