Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN SUMMER, by FLORENCE E. VON WIEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN SUMMER, by                    
First Line: In the afternoon when all is still
Last Line: I wonder why she's crying.
Subject(s): Hearts; Love


In the afternoon when all is still,
And it seems as though the mighty sun has conquered the little village,
Two artists'-models in defiantly colored smocks and sombreros,
Slip off to the mill-stream where the rushing of clear water over green-blue
stones
And the gentle sweep of branches in the water's edge
Make the secluded nook seem another world.

With indifferent eyes and a shrug of their shoulders
At the white, empty-hearted typist
Who has also crept from her boarding house and is meekly dipping her toes in the

singing water,
They fling off their sandals and hats and shake their brown bobbed hair,
And to the envy of their pathetic audience—
Stand nude in the sunshine.

Burned by the daubs of sifted sun-gold through the leaves,
Thy slide into snug suits such as the boys in the swimming hole farther down the

stream bathe in.
Their lithe, young bodies, whose whiteness glitters under the sparkling water,
Next to the satiny black of their suits,
Awaken a love in the shrinking girl
That for a moment calls forth a fire in her shy eyes.

They laugh and splash in the water—
Then contentedly lie on the rocks and purr.
She longingly names them her "little pussies."
I wonder why she's crying.





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