A
New England June
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THESE
things I remember
Of New England June,
Like a vivid day-dream
In the azure noon,
While one haunting figure |
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Strays
through every scene,
Like the soul of beauty
Through her lost demesne.
Gardens full of roses
And peonies a-blow
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In the
dewy morning,
Row on stately row,
Spreading their gay patterns,
Crimson, pied and cream,
Like some gorgeous fresco |
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| Or an
Eastern dream.
Nets of waving sunlight
Falling through the trees;
Fields of gold-white daisies
Rippling in the breeze;
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Lazy
lifting groundswells,
Breaking green as jade
On the lilac beaches,
Where the shore-birds wade.
Orchards full of blossom,
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Where
the bob-white calls
And the honeysuckle
Climbs the old gray walls;
Groves of silver birches,
Beds of roadside fern, |
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In the
stone-fenced pasture
At the river’s turn.
Out of every picture
Still she comes to me
With the morning freshness
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Of
the summer sea,—
A glory in her bearing,
A sea-light in her eyes,
As if she could not forget
The spell of Paradise. |
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Thrushes in the deep woods,
With their golden themes,
Fluting like the choirs
At the birth of dreams.
Fireflies in the meadows |
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At the
gate of Night,
With their fairy lanterns
Twinkling soft and bright.
Ah, not in the roses,
Nor the azure noon,
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Nor
the thrushes’ music,
Lies the soul of June.
It is something finer,
More unfading far,
Than the primrose evening |
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| And
the silver star;
Something of the rapture
My beloved had,
When she made the morning
Radiant and glad,—
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Something
of her gracious
Ecstasy of mien,
That still haunts the twilight,
Loving though unseen.
When the ghostly moonlight
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Walks
my garden ground,
Like a leisurely patrol
On his nightly round,
These things I remember
Of the long ago, |
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While
the slumbrous roses
Neither care nor know. |
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