The whilom hills of gray, whose tender shades
Were dashed with meager tints of early spring,
Lift now their rustling domes and colonnades,
And from the airy battlements they fling
Their banners to the wind, and in the glades
Spread rich pavilions for the summer's king.

Now lifts the love-lit soul, and life's full tide
Swells from the ground and beats the trembling air,
Mounts up the steeps, and on the landscape wide
Spreads like a boundless ocean everywhere,
Delight's dear dreams the dancing waves divide,
And with swift sails outfly pursuing Care.

The heart now feeds on hope, and on swift wings
Pleased Fancy upward flies: The glowing breast
Fills with a thousand joys, and Memory brings
No pang, but sleeps, untroubling and at rest.
The shadows are no more—regret still springs—
Sad-eyed, but gentle, and not all unblest.

The sometime fields that sad and sodden lay,
Soaked in the first cold rains, or flecked with snow,
With helpless grasses trodden in the clay
By shivering herds that wandered to and fro,
Wave now with grain, and happy birds all day
Pipe, hidden on the slopes with flowers ablow.

The yellow streams that fled from Winter's hold
When first the young year saw the vernal moon,
And lipped the yielding banks whose moistened mold
Slipped mingling with the flood, now sleep at noon,
Calm as the imaged hills which they enfold.
All glimmering in the long, long skies of June.

The brindled meadow hides the winding path
With interlacing clover, white and red;
The blackbirds, startled from their dewy bath,
Fly chattering, joyful with imagined dread;
The while the whetting scythe foretells the swath,
And rings the knell of flowers that are not dead.

There are swift gleams—celestial fires, that run
Along the leaves, and through the whispering grass;
And countless flames, sped from the summer sun,
Flash through the shadows of the clouds that pass,
And lace the stream with shimmering bars that stun
The hovering air, like gleams from shattered glass.

Wide waves of sunlight cross the fields of wheat;
The shining crow toward the woodland flies;
Far in the fields the larks their notes repeat,
And from the fence the whistling partridge cries;
Now to the cooling shades the cows retreat,
To drowse and dream with mild, half-opened eyes.

The level distance glimmers like a sea,
From which the clouds, like snowy islands, rise,
And slowly float, in silent majesty,
Far, far, above us, through the shining skies;
We know not whither—nor from whence, they flee,
We look with longing and uplifted eyes.

Along the water steals the ruffling air,
And blurs the clear reflections out with gray,
Climbs up the slope, and curving here and there
Among the pliant grasses, turns away
To bend the daisies down, then, speeding fair,
It sweeps the blooming elders' milk-white spray.

No other days are like the days of June;
They stand upon the summit of the year,
Filled up with sweet remembrance of the tune
That wooed the fresh spring fields; they have a tear
For violets dead; they will engird, full soon,
The sweet, full breasts of Summer drawing near.

God of all mercy! could the fitful days
Of man's short life be only days like these,
When every sound of stirring nature strays
As from a well-played lute: when all the trees
Stand, rapt and dreaming, in the noon-day blaze,
Or freshened in the sweet rain-scented breeze!

Each matchless morning marches from the east
In tints inimitable and divine;
Each perfect noon sustains the endless feast,
In which the wedded charms of life combine;
Sweet Evening waits till golden Day, released,
Shall lead her, blushing, down the world's decline.

And when the day is done, a crimson band
Lies glowing on the hushed and darkening west;
The groups of trees like whispering spirits stand;
The robin's song lifts from his trembling breast;
The shadows steal out from the quiet land;
And all is peace and quietness and rest.