To Summer
O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in
Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,
Oft pitched’st here thy goldent tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard
Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o’er the deep of heaven; beside our springs
Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on
Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy
Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.
Our bards are fam’d who strike the silver wire:
Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:
Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:
We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,
Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.
– William Blake
20th August – On This Day In History
Born:
1946 Connie Chung (TV personality)
Died:
1940 Leon Trotsky
On This Day:
1896 Patent for the dial telephone awarded
Have a good Thursday, 20th August
Summer In The South
The Oriole sings in the greening grove
As if he were half-way waiting,
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
Timid, and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
And the nights smell warm and pinety,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,
Streams laugh that erst were quiet,
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
And the woods run mad with riot.
– Paul Laurence Dunbar
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19th August – On This Day In History
Born:
1946 Bill Clinton (42nd US President)
Died:
14 Augustus Caesar (1st Roman Emperor)
On This Day:
1960 Sputnik 5 hoes into orbit with 2 dogs and 3 mice (all of which survive)
Have a good Wednesday, 19th August
I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
– Edna St Vincent Millay
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18th August – On This Day In History
Born:
1952 Patrick Swayze (actor)
Died:
1227 Genghis Khan (conqueror)
On This Day:
1834 Mount Vesuvius erupts
Have a good Tuesday, 18th August
In The Summer
In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
– Noele Qabbani
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17th August – on This Day In History
Born:
1786 Davy Crockett (frontiersman and politician)
Died:
2000 Paula Yates (TV star in the UK)
On This Day:
1896 Gold discovered on the Klondike River
Have a good Monday, 17th August
A Summer Afternoon
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!
– James Whitcomb Riley
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16th August – On This Day In History
Born:
1958 Madonna (singer and actress)
Died:
1948 Babe Ruth (baseball legend)
On This Day:
1960 Republic of Congo (Zaire) is formed
Have a good Sunday, 16th August.
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