Some Poems in Praise of August

Hello everyone – 

August is nearing its midpoint already, and the new academic year is almost upon us. So let’s take some time to reflect on the month of August – the last full month of the summer season – and the myriad scenes of wonder that the natural word presents to us as summer begins to wane and autumn’s upcoming arrival is previewed by choruses of cicadas in the evenings…

 

“A Calendar of Sonnets: August”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

Silence again. The glorious symphony

Hath need of pause and interval of peace.

Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,

Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.

Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry

Of color to conceal her swift decrease.

Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece

A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.

Poor middle-aged summer! Vain this show!

Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset

One meadow with a single violet;

And well the singing thrush and lily know,

Spite of all artifice which her regret

Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

 

“August Moon”

By Emma Lazarus (1848-1887)

 

Look! the round-cheeked Moon floats high,

In the glowing August sky,

Quenching all her neighbor stars,

Save the steady flame of Mars.

White as silver shines the sea,

Far-off sails like phantoms be,

Gliding o'er that lake of light,

Vanishing in nether night.

Heavy hangs the tasseled corn,

Sighing for the cordial morn;

But the marshy-meadows bare,

Love this spectral-lighted air,

Drink the dews and lift their song,

Chirp of crickets all night long;

Earth and sea enchanted lie

'Neath that moon-usurped sky.

 

To the faces of our friends

Unfamiliar traits she lends-

Quaint, white witch, who looketh down

With a glamour all her own.

Hushed are laughter, jest, and speech,

Mute and heedless each of each,

In the glory wan we sit,

Visions vague before us flit;

Side by side, yet worlds apart,

Heart becometh strange to heart.

 

Slowly in a moved voice, then,

Ralph, the artist spake again-

'Does not that weird orb unroll

Scenes phantasmal to your soul?

As I gaze thereon, I swear,

Peopled grows the vacant air,

Fables, myths alone are real,

White-clad sylph-like figures steal

'Twixt the bushes, o'er the lawn,

Goddess, nymph, undine, and faun.

Yonder, see the Willis dance,

Faces pale with stony glance;

They are maids who died unwed,

And they quit their gloomy bed,

Hungry still for human pleasure,

Here to trip a moonlit measure.

Near the shore the mermaids play,

Floating on the cool, white spray,

Leaping from the glittering surf

To the dark and fragrant turf,

Where the frolic trolls, and elves

Daintily disport themselves.

All the shapes by poet's brain,

Fashioned, live for me again,

In this spiritual light,

Less than day, yet more than night.

What a world! a waking dream,

All things other than they seem,

Borrowing a finer grace,

From yon golden globe in space;

Touched with wild, romantic glory,

Foliage fresh and billows hoary,

Hollows bathed in yellow haze,

Hills distinct and fields of maize,

Ancient legends come to mind.

Who would marvel should he find,

In the copse or nigh the spring,

Summer fairies gamboling

Where the honey-bees do suck,

Mab and Ariel and Puck?

Ah! no modern mortal sees

Creatures delicate as these.

All the simple faith has gone

Which their world was builded on.

Now the moonbeams coldly glance

On no gardens of romance;

To prosaic senses dull,

Baldur's dead, the Beautiful,

Hark, the cry rings overhead,

'Universal Pan is dead!''

'Requiescant!' Claude's grave tone

Thrilled us strangely. 'I am one

Who would not restore that Past,

Beauty will immortal last,

Though the beautiful must die-

This the ages verify.

And had Pan deserved the name

Which his votaries misclaim,

He were living with us yet.

I behold, without regret,

Beauty in new forms recast,

Truth emerging from the vast,

Bright and orbed, like yonder sphere,

Making the obscure air clear.

He shall be of bards the king,

Who, in worthy verse, shall sing

All the conquests of the hour,

Stealing no fictitious power

From the classic types outworn,

But his rhythmic line adorn

With the marvels of the real.

He the baseless feud shall heal

That estrangeth wide apart

Science from her sister Art.

Hold! look through this glass for me?

Artist, tell me what you see?'

'I!' cried Ralph. 'I see in place

Of Astarte's silver face,

Or veiled Isis' radiant robe,

Nothing but a rugged globe

Seamed with awful rents and scars.

And below no longer Mars,

Fierce, flame-crested god of war,

But a lurid, flickering star,

Fashioned like our mother earth,

Vexed, belike, with death and birth.'

 

Rapt in dreamy thought the while,

With a sphinx-like shadowy smile,

Poet Florio sat, but now

Spake in deep-voiced accents slow,

More as one who probes his mind,

Than for us-'Who seeks, shall find-

Widening knowledge surely brings

Vaster themes to him who sings.

Was veiled Isis more sublime

Than yon frozen fruit of Time,

Hanging in the naked sky?

Death's domain-for worlds too die.

Lo! the heavens like a scroll

Stand revealed before my soul;

And the hieroglyphs are suns-

Changeless change the law that runs

Through the flame-inscribed page,

World on world and age on age,

Balls of ice and orbs of fire,

What abides when these expire?

Through slow cycles they revolve,

Yet at last like clouds dissolve.

Jove, Osiris, Brahma pass,

Races wither like the grass.

Must not mortals be as gods

To embrace such periods?

Yet at Nature's heart remains

One who waxes not nor wanes.

And our crowning glory still

Is to have conceived his will.'

 

“August Moonrise”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

The Sun was gone, and the Moon was coming

Over the blue Connecticut hills;

The west was rosy, the east was flushed,

And over my head the swallows rushed

This way and that, with changeful wills.

I heard them twitter and watched them dart

Now together and now apart

Like dark petals blown from a tree;

The maples stamped against the west

Were black and stately and full of rest,

And the hazy orange Moon grew up

And slowly changed to yellow gold

While the hills were darkened, fold on fold

To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.

Down the hill I went, and then

I forgot the ways of men,

For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool

Wakened ecstasy in me

On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup

You have made me drunk and wild

Ever since I was a child,

But when have I been sure as now

That no bitterness can bend

And no sorrow wholly bow

One who loves you to the end?

And though I must give my breath

And my laughter all to death,

And my eyes through which joy came,

And my heart, a wavering flame;

If all must leave me and go back

Along a blind and fearful track

So that you can make anew,

Fusing with intenser fire,

Something nearer your desire;

If my soul must go alone

Through a cold infinity,

Or even if it vanish, too,

Beauty, I have worshipped you.

Let this single hour atone

For the theft of all of me.

 

This fresco depicting Plato’s Academy (in Athens’ Grove of Academe) is from a villa in Pompeii, Italy, which was buried beneath an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Until next time –

Rob