What Summer Means To Me
The gentle breeze
Blowing in my face
The warm sand
All over the place.
My skin is red
From all the sun.
Yet I fit in
With everyone
Girls and guys
in tanks and shorts;
Hanging out at the beach
Some surfing on their boards.
Making each day count,
Since we're out of school.
Doing what we want,
There aren't any rules!
Hangin' with my buds-
Making new inside jokes
Finding a summer love,
While drinking cold, ice-filled cokes.
This is what summer is all about-
A time you are free.
Free to run, and loudly scream and shout.
That's what summer means to me!
© 2002, Rachel Webb
Things I Love to Do
I love to walk in dripping woods
When raindrops drum on leaves,
Where sodden footsteps tell of streams
Beneath the roots of trees;
Where violets grow, and snow-white trilliums
Lift their heads in countless millions
...In spring.
I love to loll upon a bank,
And watch the puffy clouds
Shape maps and woolly forms of sheep
That melt away in shrouds;
Where brown-eyed daisies and Queen Anne's lace
Flaunt their petals in my face
...In June.
I love to tramp a dusty road
When August days are mellow,
When noontime heat in shimmering haze
Turns goldenrod to yellow;
Or hear cicadas lost in trees
Shrill their tunes in myriad keys
...In summer.
I love to tread a golden path
When aspen leaves are falling,
Or listen to the quiet dirge
Of blue jays softly calling,
Or sit upon a country fence
And breathe October's sweet incense
...In autumn.
I love to see a crystal world
All sparkling in December
When brilliant skies and frosted earth
Have blotted out November;
When every shrub and tree is dressed
In silvery lacy loveliness
...In winter.
by Sybil Beulah Maus
Old Familiar Landscapes
Those old familiar landscapes
Within my heart are longed,
Though many years have passed now
The time has not assuaged.
The willow trees in springtime,
The ducklings on the pond,
The scent of sweet magnolia
Bring memories dear and fond.
A rustic fence that traveled far
And made a boundary line
Enclosed a world that I knew best
With treasures I called mine.
A sprawling house of many rooms
And stair with spiral rail
Overlooked a broad expanse
That often I would trail.
I've travled to a distant place
Where friends have been so kind,
But old familiar landscapes
Are etched upon my mind.
BETTY COOKE
Solitude
HOW still it is here in the woods. The trees
Stand motionless, as if they do not dare
To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.
Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
Startles the stillness from its fixèd mood
With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
The dreamy white-throat from some far-off tree
Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
His five pure notes succeeding pensively.
Archibald Lampman
THE ARBOUR
I'll rest me in this sheltered bower,
And look upon the clear blue sky
That smiles upon me through the trees,
Which stand so thick clustering by;
And view their green and glossy leaves,
All glistening in the sunshine fair;
And list the rustling of their boughs,
So softly whispering through the air.
And while my ear drinks in the sound,
My winged soul shall fly away;
Reviewing lone departed years
As one mild, beaming, autumn day;
And soaring on to future scenes,
Like hills and woods, and valleys green,
All basking in the summer's sun,
But distant still, and dimly seen.
Oh, list! 'tis summer's very breath
That gently shakes the rustling trees--
But look! the snow is on the ground--
How can I think of scenes like these?
'Tis but the frost that clears the air,
And gives the sky that lovely blue;
They're smiling in a winter's sun,
Those evergreens of sombre hue.
And winter's chill is on my heart--
How can I dream of future bliss?
How can my spirit soar away,
Confined by such a chain as this?
Anne Brontë
Pleasure
True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art's temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.
No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court 'mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;
Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!
Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna's light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.
Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.
Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley's sweep,
The far horizon bound.
Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.
And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time's swift-passing car.
To ages when the earth was young,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.
You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion's storm.
Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.
Charlotte Brontë
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