#WingedWordsWindsday: 06/22/2022 -- Here Comes Summer!

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 34: June 22, 2022

 

Summer Arrived with the June Solstice on Tuesday, June 21 @ 4:14 AM (CDT)

 

“Summer Is A-Coming In” (Stanza #1):

A Middle English Summer Canon/Round

By W. de Wycombe (ca. 1261-1264)

 

The first line of the song, as preserved in the Harley MS 978, folio 11v, British Library. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Sumer is icumen in

(Summer is a-coming in)

Lhude sing cuccu

(Loudly sing cuckoo)

Groweþ sed

(Grows the seed)

and bloweþ med

(And blooms the mead)

and springþ þe wde nu

(And springs the wood anew)

Sing cuccu

(Sing cuckoo)

 

“Summer”

By Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

 

    Winter is cold-hearted,

    Spring is yea and nay,

    Autumn is a weathercock

    Blown every way:

    Summer days for me

    When every leaf is on its tree;

 

    When Robin's not a beggar,

    And Jenny Wren's a bride,

    And larks hang singing, singing, singing,

    Over the wheat-fields wide,

    And anchored lilies ride,

    And the pendulum spider

    Swings from side to side,

 

    And blue-black beetles transact business,

    And gnats fly in a host,

    And furry caterpillars hasten

    That no time be lost,

    And moths grow fat and thrive,

    And ladybirds arrive.

 

    Before green apples blush,

    Before green nuts embrown,

    Why, one day in the country

    Is worth a month in town;

    Is worth a day and a year

    Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion

    That days drone elsewhere.

 

“Summer Afternoon”

By James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

 

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm Sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
“Like one that hears it rain.”

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath a wheat-blade, has forgotten quite
If “Katy DID or DIDN’T” make a noise.

The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird
That checks the song abruptly at the sound,
And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred,
Sink into silence, all the more profound.

And drowsily I hear the plaintive strain
Of some poor dove... Why, I can scarcely keep
My heavy eyelids – there it is again –
“Coo-coo!” – I mustn’t – “Coo-coo!” – fall asleep!

 

A Trio of Summertime Poems from A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

“Summer Sun”

 

Great is the Sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

 

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlor cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through.

 

The dusty attic spider-clad

He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;

And through the broken edge of tiles

Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

 

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

 

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes.

 

“Bed in Summer”

 

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

 

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people’s feet

Still going past me in the street.

 

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

 

 “The Summer Sun Shone Round Me”

 

The summer sun shone round me,

The folded valley lay

In a stream of sun and odor,

That sultry summer day.

 

The tall trees stood in the sunlight

As still as still could be,

But the deep grass sighed and rustled

And bowed and beckoned me.

 

The deep grass moved and whispered

And bowed and brushed my face.

It whispered in the sunshine:

“The winter comes apace.”

 

“In Summer”

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

 

Oh, summer has clothed the Earth

In a cloak from the loom of the Sun!

And a mantle, too, of the skies’ soft blue,

And a belt where the rivers run.

 

And now for the kiss of the wind,

And the touch of the air’s soft hands,

With the rest from strife and the heat of life,

With the freedom of lakes and lands.

 

I envy the farmer’s boy

Who sings as he follows the plow;

While the shining green of the young blades lean

To the breezes that cool his brow.

 

He sings to the dewy morn,

No thought of another’s ear;

But the song he sings is a chant for kings

And the whole wide world to hear.

 

He sings of the joys of life,

Of the pleasures of work and rest,

From an overfull heart, without aim or art;

‘Tis a song of the merriest.

 

O ye who toil in the town,

And ye who moil in the mart,

Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong

Shall renew your joy of heart.

 

Oh, poor were the worth of the world

If never a song were heard, —

If the sting of grief had no relief,

And never a heart were stirred.

 

So, long as the streams run down,

And as long as the robins trill,

Let us taunt old Care with a merry air,

And sing in the face of ill.