August

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I

  Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace,
  Benign, of calm maturity, she stands
  Among her meadows and her orchard-lands,
  And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,
  Out of the ripe abundance of her hands,
  Bestows increase
  And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,
  Blue-eyed and blonde she goes,
  Upon her bosom _Summer's_ richest rose.


II

  And he who follows where her footsteps lead,
  By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,
  Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,
  In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:
  She in whose path the very shadows gleam;
  Whose humblest weed
  Seems lovelier than _June's_ loveliest flower, indeed,
  And sweeter to the smell
  Than _April's_ self within a rainy dell.


III

  Hers is a sumptuous simplicity
  Within the fair Republic of her flowers,
  Where you may see her standing hours on hours,
  Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee
  To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers
  Of greenery,
  A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;
  Or, lounging on her hip,
  Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.


IV

  Aye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you:
  The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,
  On which the honour of your touch doth print
  Itself as odour. Let me drink the hue
  Of ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint,
  With purple and blue,
  The rapture that your presence doth imbue
  Their inmost essence with,
  Immortal though as transient as a myth.


V

  Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure
  Me where you hide: the brooks', whose happy din
  Tells where, the deep retired woods within,
  Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lure
  Tells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chin
  Soft on the pure
  Pink cushion of your palm ... What better cure
  For care and memory's ache
  Than to behold you so and watch you wake!

© Madison Julius Cawein