Lali

While the summer day is hot
You and I will loaf awhile,
Lolling in a leafy spot,
Lali of the cunning smile.

You and I have little care
How the precious moments pass
While we snuff the drowsy air
Rich in fragrance of the grass.

Stupid people boom or squeal
Lessons drawn from daily strife;
Time, they cry, is on the wheel;
Death puts out the gas of life.

Imitate the prudent ant,
Labour like the busy bee.
O the everlasting cant!
Loafings good for you and me.

Here we watch the ants that haul
Loads by weary jungle ways!
If they like it, let them crawl
Laden through the heavy blaze.

Weve no time for moral tags;
We can hear a sleepy sound
With his yellow tucker-bags
Brother Bee is bumming round.

Little souls are vexed to see
How their hours of toil decrease:
Floating dreams for you and me,
Lazy joy in starry peace.

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic, and professor of English who was born on September 2, 1871, and died on February 2, 1933. He is best known for his association with the Bulletin school of Australian poetry and for promoting Australian literature. Brereton's contributions to poetry and literary criticism made him a significant figure in early 20th-century Australian literature. His academic career also included a long tenure at the University of Sydney.

John Le Gay Brereton

The Fugitive

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

Wilfred

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

What Of The Night?

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

For Valour

John Le Gay Brereton, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Summer Songs

I

How thick the grass,
    How green the shade -
All for love
    And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
    As hidden lace -
Open your bodice,
    That's their place.

See how the sun-god
    Overpowers
The summer lying
    Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
    Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
    With joy untold;

And all the world
    Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
    And a couch of grass.

Summer is here -
    let us drain
It all! it may
    Not come again.


II

How the leaves thicken
    On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking
    Heart of things,
The pulse and passion -
    How it ...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Lazy Mist.

Tune - "The lazy mist."


I.

    The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
    Concealing the course of the dark winding rill;
    How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear!
    As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.
    The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
    And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
    Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
    How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues!

II.

    How long have I liv'd, but how much liv'd in vain!
    How little of life's scanty span may remain!
    What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn!
    What ties cruel Fate in my bosom has torn!
    How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!
    And downward, how weaken'd, how dar...

Robert Burns

Launa Dee.

Weary, oh, so weary
With it all!
Sunny days or dreary--
How they pall!
Why should we be heroes,
Launa Dee,
Striving to no winning?
Let the world be Zero's!
As in the beginning
Let it be!

What good comes of toiling,
When all's done?
Frail green sprays for spoiling
Of the sun;
Laurel leaf or myrtle,
Love or fame--
Ah, what odds what spray, sweet?
Time, that makes life fertile,
Makes its blooms decay, sweet,
As they came.

Lie here with me dreaming,
Cheek to cheek,
Lithe limbs twined and gleaming,
Brown and sleek;
Like two serpents coiling
In their lair.
Where's the good of wreathing
Sprays for Time's despoiling?
Let me feel your breathing
In my hair.

You and I together--
...

Bliss Carman

In Summer Time

When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,--then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and path ways part,--
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,--
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night--

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Among The Timothy.

Long hours ago, while yet the morn was blithe,
Nor sharp athirst had drunk the beaded dew,
A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe
Around this stump, and, shearing slowly, drew
Far round among the clover, ripe for hay,
A circle clean and grey;
And here among the scented swathes that gleam,
Mixed with dead daisies, it is sweet to lie
And watch the grass and the few-clouded sky,
Nor think but only dream.

For when the noon was turning, and the heat
Fell down most heavily on field and wood,
I too came hither, borne on restless feet,
Seeking some comfort for an aching mood.
Ah, I was weary of the drifting hours,
The echoing city towers,
The blind grey streets, the jingle of the throng,
Weary of hope that like a shape of stone
Sat near at hand wi...

Archibald Lampman

Summer Images

Now swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered spring;
And laughing joy, with wild flowers pranked and crowned,
A wild and giddy thing,
And health robust, from every care unbound,
Come on the zephyr's wing,
And cheer the toiling clown.

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell,"
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching smiles wean them of half their cares;
And from thy sunny spell,
They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
And in the world's despite,
Share the rude mirth that thy own heart beguiles:
If hapl...

John Clare