Indian Summer

Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshoppers horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon the winter will be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933) was an American lyric poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri and her first poem publication was in 1907. Teasdale's style was characterized by clarity and simplicity, often focusing on themes of love, nature, and death. She won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize for her 1917 collection Love Songs. Unfortunately, she faced severe health issues and depression towards the end of her life, leading to her suicide in 1933.

Sara Teasdale

Ebb Tide

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

Redbirds

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

Like Barley Bending

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

Dream Song

Sara Teasdale, Simple Poetry

English

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September Midnights

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

Sara Teasdale

Summer Night, Riverside

In the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled in my hair....
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.
To-night what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This years blossoms, clinging to its coils?

Sara Teasdale

A Canadian Summer Evening.

The rose-tints have faded from out of the West,
From the Mountain's high peak, from the river's broad breast.
And, silently shadowing valley and rill,
The twilight steals noiselessly over the hill.
Behold, in the blue depths of ether afar,
Now softly emerging each glittering star;
While, later, the moon, placid, solemn and bright,
Floods earth with her tremulous, silvery light.

Hush! list to the Whip-poor-will's soft plaintive notes,
As up from the valley the lonely sound floats,
Inhale the sweet breath of yon shadowy wood
And the wild flowers blooming in hushed solitude.
Start not at the whispering, 'tis but the breeze,
Low rustling, 'mid maple and lonely pine trees,
Or willows and alders that fringe the dark tide
Where canoes of the red men oft silently gli...

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The Garden

My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;

Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain,
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten,
After the stillness, will spring come again?

Sara Teasdale

Summer.

Tis Summer, I know by the blue of the sky;
By the trees' deeper green, as beneath them I lie;
And more than all these, by the lovely wild rose
That now in the woodland its pink blossom shows.

Now ring the sharp scythes of the mowers all day,
And they spread to the air the sweet-scented hay;
They pile up the wagon ere daylight is done,
And singing come home with the set of the sun.

I feel the warm west wind fan gently my cheek
As I sit on the grass, far too happy to speak;
And then in the twilight I see the faint spark
Of the fire-fly, flitting alone in the dark.

Oh! long happy days, when 'tis full of delight
To roam in the meadows from morning till night!
Oh! summer, sweet summer! glide slowly away,
For I love in your warmth and your fragrance to ...

H. P. Nichols

Indian Summer.

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, --
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson