#WingedWordsWindsday: 06/01/2022 -- A Garland of June Poems

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 31: June 1, 2022

 

A Garland of June Poems

 

“June Is Such a Bonny Time”

By Annette Wynne (fl. 1919-1922)

 

    June is such a bonny time —

    Bird and flower weather —

    Time for song and love and rime —

    Time to be together;

    Time for hoops and sails and wings,

    Butterflies and happy things.

 

“A June Night”

By Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

 

Ten o'clock: the broken Moon

Hangs not yet a half hour high,

Yellow as a shield of brass,

In the dewy air of June,

Poised between the vaulted sky

And the ocean's liquid glass.

 

Earth lies in the shadow still;

Low black bushes, trees, and lawn

Night's ambrosial dews absorb;

Through the foliage creeps a thrill,

Whispering of yon spectral dawn

And the hidden climbing orb.

 

Higher, higher, gathering light,

Veiling with a golden gauze

All the trembling atmosphere,

See, the rayless disk grows white!

Hark, the glittering billows pause!

 

Faint, far sounds possess the ear.

Elves on such a night as this

Spin their rings upon the grass;

On the beach the water-fay

Greets her lover with a kiss;

Through the air swift spirits pass,

Laugh, caress, and float away.

 

Shut thy lids and thou shalt see

Angel faces wreathed with light,

Mystic forms long vanished hence.

Ah, too fine, too rare, they be

For the grosser mortal sight,

And they foil our waking sense.

 

Yet we feel them floating near,

Know that we are not alone,

Though our open eyes behold

Nothing save the Moon's bright sphere,

In the vacant heavens shown,

And the ocean's path of gold.

 

“June’s Coming”

By John Burroughs (1837-1921)

 

Now have come the shining days

When field and wood are robed anew,

And o’er the world a silver haze

Mingles the emerald with the blue.

 

Summer now doth clothe the land

In garments free from spot or stain —

The lustrous leaves, the hills untanned,

The vivid meads, the glaucous grain.

 

The day looks new, a coin unworn,

Freshly stamped in heavenly mint;

The sky keeps on its look of morn;

Of age and death there is no hint.

 

How soft the landscape near and far!

A shining veil the trees infold;

The day remembers Moon and star;

A silver lining hath its gold.

 

Again I see the clover bloom,

And wade in grasses lush and sweet;

Again has vanished all my gloom

With daisies smiling at my feet.

 

Again from out the garden hives

The exodus of frenzied bees;

The humming cyclone onward drives,

Or finds repose amid the trees.

 

At dawn the river seems a shade —

A liquid shadow deep as space;

But when the Sun the mist has laid,

A diamond shower smites its face.

 

The season’s tide now nears its height,

And gives to Earth an aspect new;

Now every shoal is hid from sight,

With current fresh as morning dew.

 

“A Calendar of Sonnets: June”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

 

O month whose promise and fulfilment blend,

And burst in one! it seems the earth can store

In all her roomy house no treasure more;

Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend

On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end.

And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before

It hath made ready at its hidden core

Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend

Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee

Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth?

No room is left for deeper ecstacy?

Watch well if seeds grow strong, to scatter free

Germs for thy future summers on the earth.

A joy which is but joy soon comes to dearth.

 

The month of June is named after Juno, the divine patron of marriage, childbirth, and family life in the Olympian pantheon of Classical Greek and Roman religion. Above: The Campana Hera (Juno), a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, from the Louvre. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Homeric Hymn #12: “To Hera” [Juno]

Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914)

I sing of golden-throned Hera whom Rhea bare. Queen of the immortals is she, surpassing all in beauty: she is the sister and the wife of loud-thundering Zeus, —the glorious one whom all the blessed throughout high Olympus reverence and honor even as Zeus who delights in thunder.

 

Orphic Hymn #15: “To Juno”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

 

O royal Juno of majestic mien,

Aerial-formed, divine, Jove's blessed queen,

Throned in the bosom of cerulean air,

The race of mortals is thy constant care.

The cooling gales thy power alone inspires,

Which nourish life, which every life desires.

Mother of clouds and winds, from thee alone

Producing all things, mortal life is known:

All natures share thy temperament divine,

And universal sway alone is thine.

With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea

And rolling rivers roar, when shook by thee.

Come, blessed goddess, famed almighty queen,

With aspect kind, rejoicing and serene.