June In Maine

Beautiful, beautiful summer!
    Odorous, exquisite June!
All the sweet roses in blossom,
    All the sweet birdies in tune.

Dew on the meadows at sunset;
    Gems on the meadows at morn;
Melody hushing the evening;
    Melody greeting the dawn.

All the dim aisles of the forest
    Ringing and thrilling with song;
Music—a flood-tide of music—
    Poured the green valleys along.

Rapturous creatures of beauty.
    Winging their way through the sky,
Heavenward warble their praises—
    Mount our thanksgivings as high?

Lo! when a bird is delighted,
    His ecstacy prompts him to soar;
The greater, the fuller his rapture,
    His songs of thanksgiving the more.

See how the winds from the mountains
    Sweep over meadows most fair;
The green fields are tossed like the ocean,
    Are shadowed by clouds in the air.

For now fleecy shadows are chasing
    The sunshine from woodland and vale,
As white clouds come gathering slowly,
    Blown up by the sweet-scented gale

Birds and the gales and the flowers
    Call us from study away,
Out to the fields where the mowers
    Soon will be making the hay.

Buttercups, daisies, and clover,
    Roses, sweet-briar, and fern,
Mingle their breath on the breezes—
    Who from such wooing could turn?

Out! to the heath and the mountain,
    Where mid the fern and the brake,
Under the pines and the spruces,
    Fragrant the bower we will make.

Ravishing voices of Nature,
    Ye conquer—and never too soon—
We yield to thy luscious embraces,
    Thou odorous, exquisite June!