Midsummer
After the May time and after the June time
Rare with blossoms and perfume sweet,
Cometh the round world's royal noon time,
The red midsummer of blazing heat,
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
Droop and wither and die in its rays.
Unto my heart has come this season,
O, my lady, my worshiped one,
When, over the stars of Pride and Reason,
Sails Love's cloudless, noonday sun.
Like a great red ball in my bosom burning
With fires that nothing can quench or tame,
It glows till my heart itself seems turning
Into a liquid lake of flame.
The hopes half shy and the sighs all tender,
The dreams and fears of an earlier day,
Under the noontide's royal splendor,
Droop like roses, and wither away.
From the hills of Doubt no winds are blowing,
From the isles of Pain no breeze is sent, -
Only the sun in a white heat glowing
Over an ocean of great content.
Sink, O my soul, in this golden glory!
Die, O my heart, in thy rapture-swoon!
For the Autumn must come with its mournful story.
And Love's midsummer will fade too soon.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Related quotes
Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights
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 murmur and 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 O, for my dear and the charm that stays -
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights -
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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A Woman's Farewell
SO with this farewell kiss I taste at last
The all of life; the Future and the Past
Upon your dear lips dwell.
Love will not come again, though I implore;
And in my heart a twilight evermore—
Farewell!
A man's heart is so wide that I was wrong
To dream that I could fill it with the song
A woman loves so well;
A woman's heart is narrow, but I filled
Mine brimming with your kisses—none was spilled—
Farewell!
So fierce your love was, I was half-afraid.
The roses blossom and the roses fade;
The withered petals tell!
So high into your heart you lifted me,
So far I have to fall, since it must be
Farewell!
Now all the world I fashioned round me falls;
And from the past one memory calls and calls,
Grieving, and like a knell;
Now all the days like drear regrets shall seem,
And all the nights—the nights! ..I dare not dream!
Farewell!
But what if I can hold you, hold you yet
Till all else but my lips you must forget:
If love could but compel!
But all the mystic hopes our hearts have heard
Must droop and wither to this wistful word—
Farewell!
My love was like a little child to me;
Now in my heart 't is crying piteously—
Hush, dear! all will be well!
My lips on yours for ever! Say again
You love me—though it be not true—and then—
Farewell!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Four Years
At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,
Said I mournful - Though my life be in its prime,
Bare lie my meadows all shorn before their time,
O'er my sere woodlands the leaves are turning brown;
It is the hot Midsummer, when the hay is down.
At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,
Stood she by the brooklet, young and very fair,
With the first white bindweed twisted in her hair -
Hair that drooped like birch-boughs, all in her simple gown -
That eve in high Midsummer, when the hay was down.
At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,
Crept she a willing bride close into my breast;
Low-piled the thunder-clouds had sunk into the west,
Red-eyed the sun out-glared like knight from leaguered town;
It was the high Midsummer, and the sun was down.
It is Midsummer - all the hay is down,
Close to her forehead press I dying eyes,
Praying God shield her till we meet in Paradise,
Bless her in love's name who was my joy and crown,
And I go at Midsummer, when the hay is down.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Roses
Oh, wind of the spring-time, oh, free wind of May,
When blossoms and bird-song are rife;
Oh, joy for the season, and joy for the day,
That gave me the roses of life, of life,
That gave me the roses of life.
Oh, wind of the summer, sing loud in the night,
When flutters my heart like a dove;
One came from thy kingdom, thy realm of delight,
And gave me the roses of love, of love,
And gave me the roses of love.
Oh, wind of the winter, sigh low in thy grief,
I hear thy compassionate breath;
I wither, I fall, like the autumn-kissed leaf,
He gave me the roses of death, of death,
He gave me the roses of death.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Cadences
I
(MINOR)
THE ANCIENT memories buried lie,
And the olden fancies pass;
The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly,
And die as the April cowslips die,
That scatter the bloomy grass.
All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead,
And the happy blossoming spring;
The winter comes with its iron tread,
The fields with the dying sun are red,
And the birds have ceas’d to sing.
I trace the steps on the wasted strand
Of the vanish’d springtime’s feet:
Wither’d and dead is our Fairyland,
For Love and Death go hand in hand
Go hand in hand, my sweet!
II
(MAJOR)
OH, what shall be the burden of our rhyme,
And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime?
Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long:
We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song!
O lady of my summer and my spring,
We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing,
And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet,
When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet.
We shall see the roses blowing in the green,
The pink-lipp’d roses kissing in the golden summer sheen;
We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold,
And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crown’d wold.
The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain;
There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain;
But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together,
And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympic weather.
poem by John Howard Payne
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A Song Of Roses
'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.
One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red,
Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled,
And for the white rose sing a song--the white rose for the dead.
And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold,
King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old,
Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.
And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee
And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee,
You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing wild and free.
'Tis time to sing of roses! of roses all ablow!
They come again, as sweet, my dear, as those of long ago.
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here you know.
poem by Virna Sheard
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Burning Heat
Burning in my heart- burning in my soul
Gotta have it more and more- hot and overloaded
Starving for some fun tonight- always dressed to kill
Dont tell me what I need- I need the thrill indeed
Dont stop me now
Ill run you over- bastard
Get out of my way
I feel mighty great
Burning heat- gets me- burning heat
Burning heat- breaks me- burning heat
Cant you see it coming- stronger than a bull
Get yourself going- youre too easy to beat
Dont forget Im strong- powerful and straight
I can take you on cause I am hard to break
Dont stop me now
Ill run you over- bastard
Get out of my way
I feel mighty great
Burning heat- gets me- burning heat
Burning heat- breaks me- burning heat
Burning heat- gets me- burning heat
Burning heat- breaks me- burning heat
Burning heat- leads me- burning heat
Burning heat- feeds me- burning heat
Burning in my heart- burning in my soul
Gotta have it more and more- hot and overloaded
Burning heat- gets me- burning heat
Burning heat- breaks me- burning heat
Burning heat- leads me- burning heat
Burning heat- feeds me- burning heat
song performed by by U. D. O.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fatima
O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll'd among the tender flowers:
I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth;
I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.
Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a daled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Primordial
Love is throwing your heart in the burning fire
and being willing to see it come back a frozen hulk;
and doing it again
time after time.
Love requires that we set fire
to our brain,
and watch it burn
all in Love's Name
and Passion's Call.
Love is heat;
Love is fire
and we
are Mashmellows
of the Flame.
Love is time lost.
Who can remember
how long
the Loving Night?
Love seethes
with searing heat
because once lit
flames surge
and take away
our oxygen;
and we
swoon in the Euphoria.
Love is Yearning's Call
peeking from behind
the Banyon Tree;
Love's sight
peering between
the leafy leaves
fixing on figure and form
and then is lost
in a single lover's returned glance;
then
both fall down
to Soul's Depth;
most times
never to return
from that
Landscape Primordial.
Why?
Simple.
One does not interrogate The Flame
One does not expect explanations of Fire.
One does not await memos from the Heat.
Forces of Nature exist within themselves
and we are the Willing Slaves
which obey and cannot resist.
Extinguish the flame, ban the heat
and we are merely hulks
in the vestibule of existence
feeding but without life,
seeing but without sight
breathing but without heart.
Ahh
Would we have all of this any
other way?
We are always, its seems
in the cold and damp
willing to re-light the fire
feel the heat
even if there is pain.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Seven Years Old
I.
SEVEN white roses on one tree,
Seven white loaves of blameless leaven,
Seven white sails on one soft sea,
Seven white swans on one lake’s lee,
Seven white flowerlike stars in heaven,
All are types unmeet to be
For a birthday’s crown of seven.
II.
Not the radiance of the roses,
Not the blessing of the bread,
Not the breeze that ere day grows is
Fresh for sails and swans, and closes
Wings above the sun’s grave spread,
When the starshine on the snows is
Sweet as sleep on sorrow shed,
III.
Nothing sweetest, nothing best,
Holds so good and sweet a treasure
As the love wherewith once blest
Joy grows holy, grief takes rest,
Life, half tired with hours to measure,
Fills his eyes and lips and breast
With most light and breath of pleasure
IV.
As the rapture unpolluted,
As the passion undefiled,
By whose force all pains heart-rooted
Are transfigured and transmuted,
Recompensed and reconciled,
Through the imperial, undisputed,
Present godhead of a child.
V.
Brown bright eyes and fair bright head,
Worth a worthier crown than this is,
Worth a worthier song instead,
Sweet grave wise round mouth, full fed
With the joy of love, whose bliss is
More than mortal wine and bread,
Lips whose words are sweet as kisses,
VI.
Little hands so glad of giving,
Little heart so glad of love,
Little soul so glad of living,
While the strong swift hours are weaving
Light with darkness woven above,
Time for mirth and time for grieving,
Plume of raven and plume of dove,
VII.
I can give you but a word
Warm with love therein for leaven,
But a song that falls unheard
Yet on ears of sense unstirred
Yet by song so far from heaven,
Whence you came the brightest bird,
Seven years since, of seven times seven.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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June (from, MySpace)
June is now in our way
Her bouquets glowing
Sweetheart of the day
Coming here and going
Whispering winds so softly
Surrounded by sweet air
Within my dream so loftily
Coming around to share
Love gardens of roses
Summer days to follow
Moods so swiftly closes
Of everything in hollow
Fluffy thoughts up line
For the times to come
In its glowing sunshine
Where June blossoms' from
June is now my daydream
In its sight so near
Of dawn's twilights deem
That surrounds now here
Moon’s now in sleepiness
Of a darkish winter song
And stars are all leap less
In skies of fall and long
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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A Fancy bundle of Roses
laid in tears bundle with roses in the wrist line
with hands goggle for wither petals of lovely Roses
scramble feeling settle my knee of dense pain as
the heart, shout tremendously of anguish of nothing
left as I am today
role the pages of time and catch the running
stream for a drink, as the eyes watch the
thundering voice of delightful cry and dearly behold
that death will come to say and depart not to stay
in me, I am still have the pain
Roses are for free, nurturing thorn, bleeds
the trembling hand for that fancy, could be the last
request of my faithful heart, and leave me not my
heart, for only in you I stay and lay my true love
spread the tears of lasting perfume and sprinkle
the fancy Roses of droplets of heart, bundle with
genuine appeal, and turn the lasting friendship
into a window of splendid smell aroma of love,
the climax of my essence stay
propel the scented moist, lovingly gallops my Heart
and Soul ….
poem by Antonio Liao
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June In January
When in January it’s June,
in March it will be August, hot
and clammy while I swoon
within your arms, if I am not
mistaken about climate change
that is inevitable when
the summer months within my range
make me perspire once again,
and long for January that’s cold,
when I feel comfortable within
your arms, not feeble, frazzled, old,
and ready to embark on sin,
without the need for air condit-
ioning that I associate with June.
That’s why in wintertime I wish
that January will not leave soon,
but when it does it should be May,
my favorite month when birds do sing,
accompanying my love each day
with joy while you make my heart spring.
Inspired by “It’s June in January, ” a song associated with Bing Crosby, written by Ralph Rainger and Leon Robin:
A clouded moon creeps across the clouded sky
Winds of January sigh and moan
And yet it's June.
I can see a sky of blue
Dear the miracle is due to you.
Just you.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love
It always is spring in my heart
with you in my arms.
The snow is just white blossoms
that fall from above.
And here is the reason, my dear,
Your magical charms.
The night is cold
The trees are bare
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love.
But only because I'm in love with you.
Oh the night is cold!
Won't it be to bear?
But I can feel the scent of roses in the air.
It's June in January
Because I'm in love
`1/23/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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A Calendar of Sonnets: January
O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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My Love
SHE has tender eyes that tell
All her prim, set lips suppress—
Daring thoughts that ever dwell
Prisoned in her bashfulness;
Hints of sudden tenderness
That within her breast rebel.
Till her bosom's fall and swell
Tell her meaning all too well,
To her heart's demure distress.
She has soft, smooth cheeks that flame
As she nestles close, so close,
With the new half-joy, half-shame,
That within her bosom glows,
And each fevered feature shows.
Her hot pulses beat acclaim
Of the hopes she dare not tame,
Fervid thoughts she cannot name—
Till I kiss her, and she knows.
She has clinging arms of white,
Little hands and fingers fine,
And she holds me tight, so tight;
While her eager arms entwine
Deep I drink her kisses' wine.
Hush! I feel through all her slight,
Trembling figure love's delight,
And she knows that all is right,
And her bosom beats with mine.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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A Winter Sunset
The frosty sky, like a furnace burning,
The keen air, crisp and cold,
And a sunset that splashes the clouds with gold
But my heart to summer turning.
Come back, sweet summer ! come back again !
I hate the snow,
And the icy winds that the north lands blow,
And the fall of the frozen rain.
I hate the iron ground,
And the Christmas roses,
And the sickly day that dies when it closes,
With never a song or a sound.
Come back ! come back ! with your passionate heat
And glowing hazes,
And your sun that shines as a lover gazes,
And your day with the tired feet.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
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Golden Roses
Golden Roses just for you,
anyone can give red roses,
theres plenty around,
for you white roses,
won't do.
Golden Roses just for you,
none other will do,
for someone special
so rare and true.
Golden Roses just for you,
dipped in pure gold,
just as your heart
has dipped your love into mine,
and shall not depart.
wrote 1-2-07
Welcome And Farewell
QUICK throbb'd my heart: to norse! haste, haste,
And lo! 'twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embraced,
And o'er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,
A tow'ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,
And glared with hundred gloomy eyes.
From out a hill of clouds the moon
With mournful gaze began to peer:
The winds their soft wings flutter'd soon,
And murmur'd in mine awe-struck ear;
The night a thousand monsters made,
Yet fresh and joyous was my mind;
What fire within my veins then play'd!
What glow was in my bosom shrin'd!
I saw thee, and with tender pride
Felt thy sweet gaze pour joy on me;
While all my heart was at thy side.
And every breath I breath'd for thee.
The roseate hues that spring supplies
Were playing round thy features fair,
And love for me--ye Deities!
I hoped it, I deserved it ne'er!
But, when the morning sun return'd,
Departure filled with grief my heart:
Within thy kiss, what rapture burn'd!
But in thy look, what bitter smart!
I went--thy gaze to earth first roved
Thou follow'dst me with tearful eye:
And yet, what rapture to be loved!
And, Gods, to love--what ecstasy!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Memory's River
In Nature's bright blossoms not always reposes
That strange subtle essence more rare than their bloom,
Which lies in the hearts of carnations and roses,
That unexplained something by men called perfume.
Though modest the flower, yet great is its power
And pregnant with meaning each pistil and leaf,
If only it hides there, if only abides there,
The fragrance suggestive of love, joy and grief.
Not always the air that a master composes
Can stir human heart-strings with pleasure or pain.
But strange, subtle chords, like the scent of the roses,
Breathe out of some measures, though simple the strain.
And lo! when you hear them, you love them and fear them,
You tremble with anguish, you thrill with delight,
For back of them slumber old dreams without number,
And faces long vanished peer out into sight.
Those dear foolish days when the earth seemed all beauty,
Before you had knowledge enough to be sad;
When youth held no higher ideal of duty
Than just to lilt on through the world and be glad.
On harmony's river they seemed to float hither
With all the sweet fancies that hung round that time-
Life's burdens and troubles turn into air-bubbles
And break on the music's swift current of rhyme.
Fair Folly comes back with her spell while you listen
And points to the paths where she led you of old.
You gaze on past sunsets, you see dead stars glisten,
You bathe in life's glory, you swoon in death's cold.
All pains and all pleasures surge up through those measures,
Your heart is wrenched open with earthquakes of sound;
From ashes and embers rise Junes and Decembers,
Lost islands in fathoms of feeling refound.
Some airs are like outlets of memory's oceans,
They rise in the past and flow into the heart;
And down them float shipwrecks of mighty emotions,
All sea-soaked and storm-tossed and drifting apart:
Their fair timbers battered, their lordly sails tattered,
Their skeleton crew of dead days on their decks;
Then a crash of chords blending, a crisis, an ending-
The music is over, and vanished the wrecks.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Lost Garden
There was a fair green garden sloping
From the south-east side of the mountain-ledge;
And the earliest tint of the dawn came groping
Down through its paths, from the day's dim edge.
The bluest skies and the reddest roses
Arched and varied its velvet sod;
And the glad birds sang, as the soul supposes
The angels sing on the hills of God.
I wandered there when my veins seemed bursting
With life's rare rapture and keen delight,
And yet in my heart was a constant thirsting
For something over the mountain-height.
I wanted to stand in the blaze of glory
That turned to crimson the peaks of snow,
And the winds from the west all breathed a story
Of realms and regions I longed to know.
I saw on the garden's south side growing
The brightest blossoms that breathe of June;
I saw in the east how the sun was glowing,
And the gold air shook with a wild bird's tune;
I heard the drip of a silver fountain,
And the pulse of a young laugh throbbed with glee
But still I looked out over the mountain
Where unnamed wonders awaited me.
I came at last to the western gateway,
That led to the path I longed to climb;
But a shadow fell on my spirit straightway,
For close at my side stood gray-beard Time.
I paused, with feet that were fain to linger,
Hard by that garden's golden gate,
But Time spoke, pointing with one stern finger;
'Pass on,' he said, 'for the day groes late.'
And now on the chill giay cliffs I wander,
The heights recede which I thought to find,
And the light seems dim on the mountain yonder,
When I think of the garden I left behind.
Should I stand at last on its summit's splendor,
I know full well it would not repay
For the fair lost tints of the dawn so tender
That crept up over the edge o' day.
I would go back, but the ways are winding,
If ways there are to that land, in sooth,
For what man succeeds in ever finding
A path to the garden of his lost youth?
But I think sometimes, when the June stars glisten,
That a rose scent dufts from far away,
And I know, when I lean from the cliffs and listen,
That a young laugh breaks on the air like spray.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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