June

The June has come with all its brilliant dyes,
Its honeyed breath, its balmy gusts and sighs.
In fields and stretching uplands, glade and glen,
And by the high and lowly haunts of men,
With all-surpassing glory bloom the flowers,
And come are sun-lit skies and dreamy hours.
The morning earth is all begemmed with dew,
The toiling bee, the blissful hours through,
Hums softly on his self-beguiling tune,
While gathers he the sweetest sweets of June.
Low murmuring, the crystal brooklet leads
Its way through fields and lane and emerald meads.
The clover fields are red and sweetly scent
The pasture lands, where browse the kine content.
The corn is swayed with breezes passing by,
And everywhere the bloom is on the rye.
Already on the bearded wheat is seen
The gold which tempts the farmer's sickle keen,
And I can almost see the gleaming blade
By which the golden grain is lowly laid,
And hear the singing scythe and tramp of feet,
And see the cone-shaped shocks of gathered wheat.
All shimmering the landscapes far and wide
Bespeak fair promise for the harvest-tide.

The June has come with Summer skies and glow,
Reflecting bliss and Junes of long ago —
Bare feet, and careless roving bands of boys
That haunted lake and stream in halcyon joys,
The bow and arrow, hunting ground and snares,
The sudden flight of quails and skulking hares,
The wild and joyous shouts along the glen
Come back in all the month of June again.
Then other days and solitary dreams,
Are come again with flash of flaming gleams,
Where red birds shot across the opening glades,
In quest of deeper thickets, deeper shades.
The soft sunshine comes down aslant the hills,
With perfume sweet the honeysuckle fills,
The Summer atmosphere for miles around,
And all the groves and fields are sweet with sound.
Soft tinkling bells of flocks and browsing herds,
The rippling streams and restless twittering birds,
Unite with children's voices in their shout
Of mirth and joy on all the sward about.
A nameless charm, a bliss, a merry tune
Abideth in the country lap of June.
While hills, and woods, and vale, and grassy slope,
Are teeming everywhere with life and hope.
The brook's low murmuring the morning through,
Is still a lullaby, and love is true,
In earth, and sky, and air, in dale and glen,
For all the changing, faithless sons of men.
The June has come with all its brilliant dyes,
Its honied breath, its balmy gusts and sighs.