Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUGUST, by CHARLES MAIR



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUGUST, by                    
First Line: Dull august! Maiden of the sultry days
Last Line: The toil and languor of the sultry days.
Subject(s): August; Nature


Dull August! Maiden of the sultry days,
And Summer's latest born! When all the woods
Grow dim with smoke, and smirch their lively green
With haze of long-continued drought begot;
When every field grows yellow, and a plague
Of thirst dries up its herbage to the root,
So that the cattle grow quite ribby-lean
On woody stalks whose juices all are spent;
When every fronded fern in mid-wood hid
Grows sick and yellow with the jaundice heat,
Whilst those on hill-sides glare with patchy red;
When streamlets die upon the lichened rocks,
And leave the bleaching pebbles shining bare,
And every mussel shell agape and parched,
And small snail-craft quite emptied of their crews;
When not one angel-cloud is to be seen
To image coolness and the coming rain,
But all the air with stour and dust is filled,
Through which the sun stares with a pallid face
On which one long may look, and turn, and read
Some prophecy of old with eyes undimmed;
When every morn is fiery as the noon,
And every eve is fiery as the morn,
And every night a prison hot and dark,
Where one doth sleep and dream of pleasant snow,
And winter's icicles and blessed cold,
But soon awakes, with limbs uneasy cramped,
And garments drenched, and stifled, panting breath;
When life itself grows weary of its use,
And mind is tarnished with the hue of things,
And thoughts are sickened with o'erdarkened food;
When man uneasy strolls, a listless mome
In museless misery, a wretch indeed—
Say, fiery maiden, with the scorching eyes,
What has thou left to chain us to the earth?

Ah, there are busy forms which, all unsought,
Find yet a relish in thy scanty store.
And, for that blooms are scarce, therefore the bee
Wades knee-deep in the purple thistle tops,
And shares their sweetness with the hungry wasp.
Therefore the butterfly comes sailing down,
And, heedless, lighting on a hummer's back,
Soon tacks aloft in sudden strange alarm,
Whilst bee and wasp quick scurry out of sight,
And leave their treasures to the plodding ant.
The beetle in the tree-top sits and sings
His brassy tune with increase to the end,
And one may peep and peer amongst the leaves,
Yet see him not though still he sits aloft,
And winds his reedy horn into the noon.
Now many a sob is heard in thickets dim,
Where little birds sit, pensive, on the spray,
And muse mayhap on the delights of Spring;
And many a chitmunk whistles out its fear,
And jerks and darts along the panneled rails,
Then stops, and watches with unwinking eyes
Where you do stand, as motionless as death;
But should you wag a finger through the air,
Or move a-tiptoe o'er the crispy sod,
'Twill snudge away beneath the balsam brush,
Quick lost and safe among the reddened spray.
Now one may sit within a little vale,
Close to the umbrage of some wood whose gums
Give heavy odours to the heavy air,
And watch the dusty crackers snap their wings,
Whilst gangs of blue-flies fetch a buzzing teaze
Of mad, uneasy whirlings overhead.
Now one may mark the spider trim his web
From bough to bough, and sorrow at the fate
Of many a sapless fly quite picked and bare,
Still hanging lifeless in the silken mesh,
Or muse upon the maze of insect brede
Which finds a home and feeds upon the leaves
Till naught but fibre-skeletons are hung
From branch to branch up to the highest twig.
And many a curious pleasance may be seen
And strange disport. Of such the wondrous glee
The joinéd gnats have in their headlong flight;
The wild'ring quest of horse-flies humming past
In twos and threes, and the small cloud of wings
Which mix and throng together in the sun.
A num'rous kin dart shining o'er some pool
Spared from the general wreck of water store,
And from the lofty woods crow-blackbird trains
Chuck o'er the barren leas with long-drawn flight.
Far o'er the hills the grouse's feath'ry drum
Beats quick and loud within a beechen copse,
And, sometimes, when the heavy woods are still,
A single tap upon a hemlock spire
Dwells with the lonely glades in echoes deep.

Then with the eve come sounds of varied note.
The boys troop clam'ring to the woods, and curs
Yelp sharply where the groundhog's lair is found.
The horn has called the reapers from the fields,
And, now, from cots half-hid by fruited trees,
The homely strains of fiddle or of fife,
Which distance sweetens with a needed art,
Come dropping on the ear. And sometimes, too,
If sparks are deemed sincere, and rustic love
Run smooth, the merry milkmaids sing
A fallow's length with pails at elbow slung,
Or, while they thrust the draw-well dangler down,
'Gainst which the swains oppose their yielding strength,
Laugh loud and long, or scold with mimicked heat.
These find a pleasure in the waste of days,
And strive against the mis'ry of the time
With am'rous snares and artifice of love.
Not less those faithful ones who look upon
This weather-sorrow with sufficing joy—
The old, who still would linger with their seed,
And snatch a little comfort from the earth.
Still would they gaze upon the simmering sun,
And take the warmth into their agéd bones,
Nor cavil with the hindrances which stay
The lethal hour when death shall come and bend
Their reverend heads into the restful grave.

Hail August! Maiden of the sultry days,
To thee I bring the measured meed of praise.
For, though thou hast besmirched the day and night,
And hid a wealth of glory from our sight,
Thou still dost build in musing, pensive mood,
Thy blissful idyls in the underwood.
Thou still dost yield new beauties, fair and young,
With many a form of grace as yet unsung,
Which ripens o'er thy pathway and repays
The toil and languor of the sultry days.





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