A Wraith Of Summertime.

    In its color, shade and shine,
    'T was a summer warm as wine,
    With an effervescent flavoring of flowered bough and vine,
    And a fragrance and a taste
    Of ripe roses gone to waste,
    And a dreamy sense of sun- and moon- and star-light interlaced.

    'Twas a summer such as broods
    O'er enchanted solitudes,
    Where the hand of Fancy leads us through voluptuary moods,
    And with lavish love out-pours
    All the wealth of out-of-doors,
    And woos our feet o'er velvet paths and honeysuckle floors.

    'Twas a summertime long dead, -
    And its roses, white and red,
    And its reeds and water-lilies down along the river-bed, -
    O they all are ghostly things -
    For the ripple never sings,
    And the rocking lily never even rustles as it rings!