#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/06/07 -- A Garland of June Poems

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 32: June 7, 2023

 

 

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 Night in June”

By Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914)

 

White as a lily molded of Earth's milk

That eve the Moon bloomed in a hyacinth sky;

Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by,

Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk:

Bright as a naiad's leap, from shine to shade

The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier;

Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire,

Flashed like a great enchantment-welded blade.

And when the western sky seemed some weird land,

And night a witching spell at whose command

One sloping star fell green from heaven; and deep

The warm rose opened for the moth to sleep;

Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his,

And lifted up her lips for their first kiss.

 

There where they part, the porch's steps are strewn

With wind-blown petals of the purple vine;

Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine

Cleaves the white moonlight; and like some calm rune

Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic Moon;

And now a meteor draws a lilac line

Across the welkin, as if God would sign

The perfect poem of this night of June.

The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree,

Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass

Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass;

And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame,

The dewdrop trembles on the peony,

As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name.

 

“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 ecstasy?

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 Knights of the Round Table swear loyalty to King Arthur at the high feast of Pentecost, which can take place in early June, in this illustration from Page, Esquire, and Knight: A Book of Chivalry (1910). Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

 

“Prelude to Part First” from The Vision of Sir Launfal

By James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

                Editor’s Note: Sir Launfal was a Knight of the Round Table at King Arthur’s court in Camelot. He is the hero of an Anglo-Norman French lay by Marie de France (composed between 1155-1170) and of two Middle English metrical romances adapted by their authors from Marie’s original composition in the 14^th century.

 

Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent

Along the wavering vista of his dream.

 

Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,

We Sinais climb and know it not;

Over our manhood bend the skies;

Against our fallen and traitor lives

The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;

Its arms outstretched, the Druid wood

Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

    

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil's booth are all things sold

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:

'Tis heaven alone that is given away,

'Tis only God may be had for the asking;

There is no price set on the lavish summer,

And June may be had by the poorest comer.

 

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the Earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays:

Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, grasping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the Sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean

To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being overrun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, --

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

 

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,

We are happy now because God so wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, --

And hark! how clear bold Chanticleer,

Warmed with the new wine of the year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, --

‘Tis the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphureous rifts of passion and woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

What wonder if Sir Launfal now

Remembered the keeping of his vow?

 

King Arthur and his knights, gathered at the Round Table, see a vision of the Holy Grail. Image Credit: From a manuscript of Lancelot and the Holy Grail, ca. 1406 – public domain via Wikimedia Commons.