TOURING

God of Summer — I have seen

World on world of summer green —

Summer earth and summer sky,

Fields of summer turning by;

Hills beyond us fall away,

Tumbled slopes in disarray,

Fold and melt into a plain:

Fire and gold of summer grain.

Orchards curving on a hill,

Heavy-fruited, green and still,

Heave a shoulder to the sky,

Bend and bow and hurry by;

Fields of clover burn and pass,

Cattle knee-deep in the grass

Lift a lazy head and look

Pictures in a picture-book....

Corn in swift, revolving rows,

Dripping sunlight where it goes,

Wheels and glitters and returns:

Bladed beauty's lifted urns;

Woods all shadowed, cooling earth,

Murmuring of a quiet mirth,

Pour damp odours where they pass,

Breath of fern and earth and grass...

Ramblers on a lichened wall,

Ramblers, ramblers pouring all

Colour that the world has known

Out upon an aging stone.—

Little towns of street and spire,

Dooryard roses, heart's desire,

Light a dream within the mind,

Light a dream... and fall behind.

God of mercies — when I slept,

World on world of summer kept

Turning, turning softly by,—

Summer earth and summer sky:

Fields of summer that will be

Summer always unto me —

Never lost, not left behind:

Always summer for my mind.