July

There is a month between the swath and sheaf
When grass is gone
And corn still grassy,
When limes are massy
With hanging leaf
And pollen-coloured blooms whereon
Bees are voices we can hear,
So hugely dumb
This silent month of the attaining year.
The white-faced roses slowly disappear
From field and hedgerow, and no more flowers come:
Earth lies in strain of powers
Too terrible for flowers:
And would we know
Her burthen we must go
Forth from the vale, and, ere the sunstrokes slacken.
Stand at a moorland's edge and gaze
Across the hush and blaze
Of the clear-burning, verdant summer bracken;
For in that silver flame
Is writ July's own name —
The ineffectual, numbed sweet
Of passion at its heat.