Poems for Summer

Here are a few Summer-themed poems that will stretch your vocabulary. Make sure to read these with

the 1828 Dictionary or app so you can look up the meanings of words. Ask your kids to listen for words they dont know and ask them to guess what they think it means. As you do this more they will start to be able to reason out the meanings of words.

Some words you will find are:

azure

beguile

dappled

eddied

fare

fronds

hectoring

languor

monotony

sprawl

stubble

suffused

waft

Labour

By Robert Herrick

Labour we must, and labour hard

I' th' forum here, or vineyard.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

BY JANE KENYON

A second crop of hay lies cut   

and turned. Five gleaming crows   

search and peck between the rows.

They make a low, companionable squawk,   

and like midwives and undertakers   

possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   

parting before me like the Red Sea.   

The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   

to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.   

Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   

suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   

fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   

The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   

brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   

water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   

over me. The days are bright   

and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   

for an hour, with my whole   

body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   

and a crow, hectoring from its nest   

high in the hemlock, a nest as big   

as a laundry basket ...

                                    In my childhood   

I stood under a dripping oak,

while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   

waiting for the school bus

with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   

this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   

and operations with numbers I did not   

comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   

by use, in a blue canvas satchel

with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   

I stood at the side of the road.   

It was the only life I had.

Summer Going

BY Richard Le Gallienne

    Crickets calling,

    Apples falling.

    Summer dying,

    Life is flying.

    So soon over -

    Love and lover.

Summer Evening

By Walter De La Mare

    The sandy cat by the Farmer's chair

    Mews at his knee for dainty fare;

    Old Rover in his moss-greened house

    Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse

    In the dewy fields the cattle lie

    Chewing the cud 'neath a fading sky

    Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:

    Gone is another summer's day.

The Summer Sea

By Charles Kingsley

         Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding,

    Waft thy silver cloud webs athwart the summer sea;

         Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining

    Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.

         Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,

    Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;

         Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,

    Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me.

    --From The Water-Babies.    1862

A Summer Day

By Madison Julius Cawein

    White clouds, like thistledown at fault,

    That drift through heaven's azure vault.

    The sun beams down; the weedy ground

    Vibrates with many an insect sound.

    Blackberry-lilies in the noon

    Lean to the creek with eyes a-swoon,

    Where, in a shallow, silver gleams

    Of minnows and a heron dreams

    An old road, clouding pale the heat

    Behind a slow hoof's muffled beat:

    And there, hill-gazing at the skies,

    A pond, within whose languor lies

    A twinkle, like an eye that smiles

    In thought; that with a dream beguiles

    The day: a. dream of clouds that drift,

    And arms the willow trees uplift,

    Protectingly, as if to hide

    The wildbird on its nest that cried.

    Now mists that mass thesunset-dyes

    Build an Arabia in the skies,

    Through which the sun in pomp retires,

    Torched to his room with saffron fires;

    And 'thwart his palace door is laid

    A crescent sign, a moony blade,

    Then glittering in a cloud is sheathed;

    And, dripping crimson, fire-wreathed,

    A magic scimetar of flame

    Is slowly drawn before the same.

    The door of Day is closed; its bar

    Put up, one bright and golden star;

    While, crowding all the corridors

    Of Dusk, the shadows, blackamoors

    Of darkness, glide; and zephyrs sweep

    Mist-gowns of musk through halls of Sleep

    Dim odalisques of Night, who wait

    Upon their lord who lies in state.