Poems (Howard)/July

by Hattie Howard

For works with similar titles, see July.

July.

The poets all their lyres attune
To sing of leafy, golden June
When Nature dons her gala dress,
And crowns the earth with loveliness;
But, sweltering with fervent heat
That in July is hard to beat,
They all with one accord deny
There 's any beauty in July.

Why, in July the world's aglow
With richer tints, a grander show
Than ever yet awoke their praise
For June's entrancing, radiant days!
For flower, and leaf, and everything
Reflects the promise of the Spring,
And June's incipient plan and thought
July has to perfection wrought.

The bright mid-day of all the year—
Its radiator—now is here,
Arrayed in hues of deepest dyes;
Oh, for the power to crystallize
Into an icicle, and cling—
A humid, pensile, cooling thing—
To some old roof-tree while July,
In burning splendor, passes by!