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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SUMMER IDYLL, by GEORGE BARKER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Sometimes in summer months, the gestate earth Last Line: Like swans, like perfect swans. Subject(s): Summer | |||
Sometimes in summer months, the matrix earth Loaded to gold, the boughs arching downward Burdened, the shallow and glucose streams Teeming, flowers out, all gold camouflage Of the collusive summer; but under the streams Winder lies coldly, and coldly embedded in The corn hunger lies germinally, want under The abundance, poverty pulling down The tautened boughs, and need is the seed. Robe them in superb summer, at angles Their bones penetrate, or with a principality Of Spring possess them, under the breast Space of a vacancy spreads like a foul Ghost flower, want: and the pressure upon The eyeball of their spirits, upon the organs Of their spare bodies, the pressure upon Their movement and their merriment, loving and Living, the pressure upon their lives like deep Seas, becomes insufferable. Sometimes the summer lessens a moment the pressure. Large as the summer rose some rise Bathing in rivers or at evening harrying rabbits, Indulging in games in meadows-- and some are idle, strewn Over the parks like soiled paper like summer Insects, bathed in sweat or at evening harried By watchmen, park-keepers, policemen-- indulge in games Dreaming as I dream of rest and cleanliness and cash. And the gardens exhibit the regalia of the season Like debutante queans, between which they wander Blown with vague odours, seduced by the pure Beauty, like drowned men floating in bright coral. Summer, denuding young women, also denudes Them, removes jackets, exposing backs -- Summer moves many up the river in boats Trailing their fingers in the shadowed water; they Too move by the river, and in the water shadows Trail in hand, which need not find a bank, Face downward, like bad fruit. Cathedrals and Building Societies, as they appear, disappear; and Beethoven Is played more loudly to deafen the Welsh echoes, And Summer, blowing over the Mediterranean Like swans, like perfect swans. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ADVANCE OF SUMMER by MARY KINZIE THE SUMMER IMAGE by LEONIE ADAMS CANOEBIAL BLISS by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY THE END OF SUMMER by HENRY MEADE BLAND THE FARMER'S BOY: SUMMER by ROBERT BLOOMFIELD SONNET: 14. APPROACH OF SUMMER by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES JULY IN WASHINGTON by ROBERT LOWELL ODE TO THE END OF SUMMER by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY HOLY POEMS: 1 by GEORGE BARKER |
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