The Garden of Years and Other Poems/June

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

For works with similar titles, see June.

Lightsome, laughter-loving June,
                        Days that swoon
        In beds of flowers;
Twilights dipped in rose perfume,
                        Nights of gloom
        Washed clear by showers.
Suns that softly sink to rest
                        In the west,
        All purple barred;
And a faint night-wind that sighs
                        Under skies
        Still, silver-starred.
Languorous breaths of meadow land
                        Overspanned
        By clouds like snow;
And a shouting from the brooks,
                        Where in nooks
        Late violets grow.
June, ah, June, to lie and dream
                        By the stream,
        And in the maze
Of thy spells never to heed—
                        How they speed,
        Thy witching days;
Watching where the shadows pass.
                        And the grass
        All rustling bends,
While the bees fly east and west,
                        On a quest
        That never ends.
Thus to shun the whirl of life,
                        Freed from strife
        And freed from care—
Hear, as when a lad I heard
                        How the bird
        Sings, high in air.
June, to hear beneath the skies
                        Lullabies
        That night airs blow;
Ah, to find upon thy breast
                        That pure rest
        I used to know!

New York, 1895.