 | Wild honey from various thyme |  |
105
JULY
There is a month between the swath and sheafWhen grass is gone
And corn still grassy;
When limes are massy
With hanging leaf,
And pollen-coloured blooms whereon
Bees are voices we can hear,
So hugely dumb
This silent month of the attaining year.
The white-faced roses slowly disappear
From field and hedgerow, and no more flowers come;
Earth lies in strain of powers
Too terrible for flowers:
And, would we know
Her burthen, we must go
Forth from the vale, and, ere the sunstrokes slacken,
Stand at a moorland's edge and gaze
Across the hush and blaze
Of the clear-burning, verdant summer bracken;
106
Is writ July's own name—
The ineffectual, numbed sweet
Of passion at its heat.
| Wild honey from various thyme | |