April airs : a book of New England lyrics / Bliss Carman [electronic text]

NEW ENGLAND JUNE.

THESE things I remember Of New England June, Like a vivid day-dream In the azure noon, While one haunting figure Strays through every scene, Like the soul of beauty Through her lost demesne.

Gardens full of roses And peonies a-blow In the dewy morning, Row on stately row, Spreading their gay patterns, Crimson, pied and cream, Like some gorgeous fresco Or an Eastern dream.

Nets of waving sunlight Falling through the trees; Fields of gold-white daisies Rippling in the breeze; Lazy lifting groundswells, Breaking green as jade On the lilac beaches, Where the shore-birds wade.

Orchards full of blossom, Where the bob-white calls And the honeysuckle Climbs the old gray walls; Groves of silver birches, Beds of roadside fern, In the stone-fenced pasture At the river's turn.

Out of every picture Still she comes to me With the morning freshness Of the summer sea, —A glory in her bearing,A sea-light in her eyes, As if she could not forget The spell of Paradise.

Thrushes in the deep woods, With their golden themes, Fluting like the choirs At the birth of dreams. Fireflies in the meadows At the gate of Night, With their fairy lanterns Twinkling soft and bright.

Ah, not in the roses, Nor the azure noon, Nor the thrushes' music, Lies the soul of June. It is something finer, More unfading far, Than the primrose evening And the silver star;

Something of the rapture My beloved had, When she made the morning Radiant and glad,—Something of her gracious Ecstasy of mien, That still haunts the twilight, Loving though unseen.

When the ghostly moonlight Walks my garden ground, Like a leisurely patrol On his nightly round, These things I remember Of the long ago, While the slumbrous roses Neither care nor know.