University of Virginia Library

June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers:
In vain are dewdrops sprinkled over her;
In vain would fond winds fan her back to life.
Her hours are numbered on the floral dial;
Astræa's scales have weighed her minutes out,
Poised on the Zodiac; and the Northern Crown
Hangs sparkling in the zenith just at eve,
To show a queen is passing. See where stands,
Pausing on tiptoe, with full, flushing lips,
And outstretched arms, her sister, bright July,
Eager to kiss the blossoms, that will fade
If her hot breath but touch them.
June is dead.
Dead, without dread or pain, her gayest wreaths
Twined with her own hands for her funeral.
At first she smiled upon us, garlanded
With columbines and azure lupine-buds;
But now we find a few pale roses, dropped
In her last dreamy loitering through the fields,
Or see her wild geraniums by the brook,
Her laurels and azaleas in the woods.
These gather we as keepsakes of dear June,
Though not unmindful of the humbler flowers
That thought it joy to bloom around her feet;
The buttercups and blue-eyed-grass that peeped
Under the wayside bars at travelers;
Prunella lingering in the wagon's track;
The evening primrose, glimmering like a star
When the sun set; and the prim mullein too,
Folded in flannels from the eastern winds,
Damp dews, and reckless songs of bob-o'-links.

A warmer reign begins, and they must fade
Beneath its splendor; even these richer blooms,—
Orchis and Arethusa quaintly robed,
And harebells nodding to blue skies and streams,
And white pond-lilies, scarcely opening
In time to catch the farewell look of June:
But the midsummer air is balmy yet,
With the sweet, lingering breath of flowers that died,
And left their fragrance for a legacy
To weary, dusty days they never saw.

Nature has meanings for the wise to guess.
The grass springs up like good thoughts in a soul
That loves and blesses all things, high and low.
The rose breathes out a passion and a beauty
Far sweeter than her bloom. And God sends man,
When he approaches heaven with lofty words,
To the green cloisters, where, from whitest calm,
The lily of the valley's incense-cloud
Ascends to Him like an unspoken prayer.

The universe is one great, loving thought,
Written in hieroglyphs of bud and bloom;
And we in human faces, human forms,
Not overgrown or ruinous with sin,
The same inspiring characters may read;
May feel sweet emanations from the life
Of one whose soul is closely knit with God's,
As if the gates of blessed Paradise
Again swung open to this outcast world.

Creator, Father! Thou art nature's wealth.
Suns, blossoms, insects, worlds, and souls of men,
Draw life's deep joy from Thee, their treasury.
Oft, like a beggar suddenly made rich,
I sink beneath the overpowering sense
Of Thee in all things. Sometimes 't is the moon,
Orbed like an Eye dilating with calm love,
That drowns me in pale, silent waves of light;
Sometimes it is the mighty, shadowing hills,
That crush me with a greatness not their own:
Or stars burn glory through me, living coals
On the heaped altar of the universe.

But whispers oftener, borne from common things,
Waken a subtle faculty within,
A sense of deeper beauty yet unbreathed:
As at the rainbow-bridge sat Asgard's ward
Listening through every season, and could hear
The grass grow leagues away,—so comes to me
A golden gladness, with keen, delicate edge
Piercing the films that wrap the inner sense,
Making it joy to think of swelling buds,
And fruit slow-ripening on the apple-trees,
And young birds fledging in the robin's nest:
By every outward sluice runs through my soul,
And overflows its brim, the thought of Thee!

But the swift memory of man and sin
Returns, and drains away my happiness.
O God! that man were good! That he would not
Make himself pestilent by brooding long
Over low thoughts and deeds,—a wind that lurks
For poisons in the marsh:—that he were true
And loving, like all natural things, that grow
Best in the sunshine, drawing from Thy light
Their joy, their strength from working Thy firm will!
Then were this human life a summer breeze
Freshing the earth with balmy draughts of bloom;
And death were but subsiding into heaven,
As June flowers softly fade upon the light
Of brighter noons, yet leave their breath behind.