A Garland of Poems for Midsummer Eve! :)

Hello everyone – 

TONIGHT, June 23^rd, is Midsummer Eve – a traditional holiday that celebrates the long days and short nights of summertime with bonfires, dancing, feasting, and singing under the stars. In areas north of 50 degrees latitude, the night sky never becomes completely dark at this time of year, resulting in a faint twilight glow that lingers all through the night.

In European folklore, it was believed that Midsummer Eve was when all the Fair Folk (elves, faeries, dryads, etc.) held midnight revels to celebrate the high point of the year. (This folk belief is reflected in Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) So in this edition of Quotemail, we have some poems about things that one might expect to see on Midsummer Eve – Fair Folk, starlight, and all things enchanting!

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I [“Over Hill, Over Dale”]

By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A wood near Athens. A Fairy speaks.

Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green:

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favors,

In those freckles live their savors:

I must go seek some dew-drops here

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone;

Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

“A Fairy in Armor”

By Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820)

He put his acorn helmet on;
It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down;
The corslet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee's golden vest;
His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
His shield was the shell of a lady-bug green,
Studs of gold on a ground of green;
And the quivering lance which he brandished bright,
Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed;
He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;
He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,
And away like a glance of thought he flew,
To skim the heavens, and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.

“Faery Rings”

By Evaleen Stein

[This poem explains how people before the Space Age explained the origin of “crop circles.” Truly, there’s nothing new under the Sun! – RHC]

Softly in the gloaming
Flitting through the vale,
Faery folk are roaming
Over hill and dale.

Pixies in the hollow,
Elves upon the height,
Let us follow, follow
Through the paling light.

Follow, all unbidden,
To the grassy glade
Wrapped around and hidden
In the forest shade.

Hark the elfin tinkle
Of their little lutes!
Mark the golden twinkle
Of their faery flutes!

See them dancing, dancing,
While the silver moon
Tips their swiftly glancing
Little silver shoon!

Tripping, tripping lightly,
Where their footprints fall,
Look! the grass is brightly
Growing green and tall!

Springing close, unbroken,
In a faery ring,
For tomorrow’s token
Of their frolicking!

Midsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes c. 1908

 

“On a Midsummer Eve”

By Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

 

I idly cut a parsley stalk,

And blew therein towards the moon;

I had not thought what ghosts would walk

With shivering footsteps to my tune.

 

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand

As if to drink, into the brook,

And a faint figure seemed to stand

Above me, with the bygone look.

 

I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,

I thought not what my words might be;

There came into my ear a voice

That turned a tenderer verse for me.

 

 

“On Midsummer Night”

By Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914)

 

All the poppies in their beds

Nodding crumpled crimson heads;

And the larkspurs, in whose ears

Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears,

Sleepy jewels of the rain;

All the violets, that strain

Eyes of amethystine gleam;

And the clover-blooms that dream

With pink baby fists closed tight,

They can hear upon this night,

Noiseless as the moon's white light,

Footsteps and the glimmering flight,

Shimmering flight,

Of the Fairies

 

Every sturdy four-o'clock,

In its variegated frock;

Every slender sweet-pea, too,

In its hood of pearly hue;

Every primrose pale that dozes

By the wall and slow uncloses

A sweet mouth of dewy dawn

In a little silken yawn,

On this night of silvery sheen,

They can see the Fairy Queen,

On her palfrey white, I ween,

Tread dim cirques of haunted green,

Moonlit green,

With her Fairies.

 

Never a foxglove bell, you see,

That's a cradle for a bee;

Never a lily, that's a house

Where the butterfly may drowse;

Never a rosebud or a blossom,

That unfolds its honeyed bosom

To the moth, that nestles deep

And there sucks itself to sleep,

But can hear and also see,

On this night of witchery,

All that world of Faery,

All that world where airily,

Merrily,

Dance the Fairies.

 

It was last Midsummer Night,

In the moon's uncertain light,

That I stood among the flowers,

And in language unlike ours

Heard them speaking of the Pixies,

Trolls and Gnomes and Water-Nixies;

How in this flower's ear a Fay

Hung a gem of rainy ray;

And 'round that flower's throat had set

Dim a dewdrop carcanet;

Then among the mignonette

Stretched a cobweb-hammock wet,

Dewy wet,

For the Fairies.

 

Long I watched; but never a one,

Ariel, Puck, or Oberon,

Mab or Queen Titania

Fairest of them all they say

Clad in morning-glory hues,

Did I glimpse among the dews.

Only once I thought the torch

Of that elfin-rogue and arch,

Robin Goodfellow, afar

Flashed along a woodland bar

Bright, a jack-o'-lantern star,

A green lamp of firefly spar,

Glow-worm spar,

Loved of Fairies.

 

“Fairy Song” (Excerpted from Flower Fables, 1855)

By Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

 

The moonlight fades from flower and tree,

And the stars dim one by one;

The tale is told, the song is sung,

And the Fairy feast is done.

The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,

And sings to them, soft and low.

The early birds erelong will wake:

‘Tis time for the Elves to go.

        

O’er the sleeping earth we silently pass,

Unseen by mortal eye,

And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float

Through the quiet moonlit sky;--

For the stars’ soft eyes alone may see,

And the flowers alone may know,

The feasts we hold, the tales we tell:

So ‘tis time for the Elves to go.

        

From bird, and blossom, and bee,

We learn the lessons they teach;

And seek, by kindly deeds, to win

A loving friend in each.

And though unseen on earth we dwell,

Sweet voices whisper low,

And gentle hearts most joyously greet

The Elves where’er they go.

        

When next we meet in the Fairy dell,

May the silver moon’s soft light

Shine then on faces gay as now,

And Elfin hearts as light.

Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky

With sunlight soon will glow.

The morning star shall light us home:

Farewell! for the Elves must go.

 

 

DEDICATION

This Merry Midsummer edition of Quotemail is dedicated to all my friends at the Center for Children’s Books at the University of Illinois. Please visit them @ http://ccb.ischool.illinois.edu to learn more about their programs and publications highlighting the best new literature for children and young adults.