A drop fell on the apple tree,
Another on the roof ;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.
A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
...
Summer — we all have seen —
A few of us — believed —
A few — the more aspiring
Unquestionably loved —
But Summer does not care —
She goes her spacious way
As eligible as the moon
To our Temerity —
The Doom to be adored —
The Affluence conferred —
...
On fence and roof and twig.
The orchis binds her feather on
For her old love, Don the Sun,
Revisiting the bog !
Without commander, countless, still,
The regiment of wood and hill
In bright detachment stand.
Behold ! Whose multitudes are these ?
The children of whose...
Talk not to me of Summer Trees
The foliage of the mind
A Tabernacle is for Birds
Of no corporeal kind
And winds do go that way at noon
To their Ethereal Homes
Whose Bugles call the least of us
To undepicted Realms
The last of Summer is Delight —
Deterred by Retrospect.
'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review —
Enchantment's Syndicate.
To meet it — nameless as it is —
Without celestial Mail —
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil.
The One who could repeat the Summer day —
Were greater than itself — though He
Minutest of Mankind should be —
And He — could reproduce the Sun —
At period of going down —
The Lingering — and the Stain — I mean —
When Orient have been outgrown —
And Occident — become Unknown —...
The Summer that we did not prize,
Her treasures were so easy
Instructs us by departing now
And recognition lazy —
Bestirs itself — puts on its Coat,
And scans with fatal promptness
For Trains that moment out of sight,
Unconscious of his smartness.
There came a Day at Summer's full,
Entirely for me —
I thought that such were for the Saints,
Where Resurrections — be —
The Sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new —
The time was scarce...
To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie —
True Poems flee —