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Writer's pictureChristine Owens

Poems for Summer

Here are a few Summer-themed poems that will stretch your vocabulary. Make sure to read these with

the 1828 Dictionary or app so you can look up the meanings of words. Ask your kids to listen for words they dont know and ask them to guess what they think it means. As you do this more they will start to be able to reason out the meanings of words.


Some words you will find are:

azure

beguile

dappled

eddied

fare

fronds

hectoring

languor

monotony

sprawl

stubble

suffused

waft


Labour

By Robert Herrick


Labour we must, and labour hard

I' th' forum here, or vineyard.








Three Songs at the End of Summer


A second crop of hay lies cut   

and turned. Five gleaming crows   

search and peck between the rows.

They make a low, companionable squawk,   

and like midwives and undertakers   

possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   

parting before me like the Red Sea.   

The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   

to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.   

Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   

suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   

fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   

The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   

brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   

water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   

over me. The days are bright   

and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   

for an hour, with my whole   

body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   

and a crow, hectoring from its nest   

high in the hemlock, a nest as big   

as a laundry basket ...

                                    In my childhood   

I stood under a dripping oak,

while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   

waiting for the school bus

with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   

this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   

and operations with numbers I did not   

comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   

by use, in a blue canvas satchel

with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   

I stood at the side of the road.   

It was the only life I had.




Summer Going

BY Richard Le Gallienne

    

    Crickets calling,

    Apples falling.


    Summer dying,

    Life is flying.


    So soon over -

    Love and lover.


Summer Evening

By Walter De La Mare


    The sandy cat by the Farmer's chair


    Mews at his knee for dainty fare;


    Old Rover in his moss-greened house


    Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse


    In the dewy fields the cattle lie


    Chewing the cud 'neath a fading sky


    Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:


    Gone is another summer's day.


The Summer Sea

By Charles Kingsley


         Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,


    Waft thy silver cloud webs athwart the summer sea;


         Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining


    Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.



         Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,


    Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;


         Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,


    Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me.


    --From The Water-Babies.    1862



A Summer Day

By Madison Julius Cawein


    White clouds, like thistledown at fault,


    That drift through heaven's azure vault.


    The sun beams down; the weedy ground


    Vibrates with many an insect sound.


    Blackberry-lilies in the noon


    Lean to the creek with eyes a-swoon,


    Where, in a shallow, silver gleams


    Of minnows and a heron dreams


    An old road, clouding pale the heat


    Behind a slow hoof's muffled beat:


    And there, hill-gazing at the skies,


    A pond, within whose languor lies


    A twinkle, like an eye that smiles


    In thought; that with a dream beguiles


    The day: a. dream of clouds that drift,


    And arms the willow trees uplift,


    Protectingly, as if to hide


    The wildbird on its nest that cried.


    Now mists that mass thesunset-dyes


    Build an Arabia in the skies,


    Through which the sun in pomp retires,


    Torched to his room with saffron fires;


    And 'thwart his palace door is laid


    A crescent sign, a moony blade,


    Then glittering in a cloud is sheathed;


    And, dripping crimson, fire-wreathed,


    A magic scimetar of flame


    Is slowly drawn before the same.


    The door of Day is closed; its bar


    Put up, one bright and golden star;


    While, crowding all the corridors


    Of Dusk, the shadows, blackamoors


    Of darkness, glide; and zephyrs sweep


    Mist-gowns of musk through halls of Sleep


    Dim odalisques of Night, who wait


    Upon their lord who lies in state.





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