IN JULY

This path will tell me where dark daisies dance

To the white sycamores that dell them in;

Where crow and flicker cry melodious din,

And blackberries in ebon ripeness glance

Luscious enticings under briery green.

It will slip under coppice limbs that lean

Brushingly as the slow-belled heifer pants

Toward weedy water-plants

That shade the pool-sunk creek's reluctant trance.

I shall find bell-flower spires beside the gap

And lady phlox within the hollow's cool;

Cedar with sudden memories of Yule

Above the tangle tipped with blue skullcap.

The high hot mullein fond of the full sun

Will watch and tell the low mint when I've won

The hither wheat where idle breezes nap,

And fluffy quails entrap

Me from their brood that crouch to escape mishap.

Then I shall reach the mossy water-way

That gullies the dense hill up to its peak,

There dally listening to the eerie eke

Of drops into cool chalices of clay.

Then on, for elders odorously will steal

My senses till I climb up where they heal

The livid heat of its malingering ray,

And wooingly betray

To memory many a long-forgotten day.

There I shall rest within the woody peace

Of afternoon. The bending azure frothed

With silveryness, the sunny pastures swathed,

Fragrant with morn-mown clover and seed-fleece;

The hills where hung mists muse, and Silence calls

To Solitude thro’ aged forest halls,

Will waft into me their mysterious ease,

And in the wind's soft cease

I shall hear hintings of eternities.