Am IDSUMMER S ONNET

In Winter gifts at Learning's feet we fling:
The sunshine finds us, but through poets' pages;
The stars gleam, but the stars of bygone ages;
Spenser wreathes Winter with the bloom of Spring
The birds are silent, but the poets sing:
In Shelley's verse the undying Summer glows;
At Keats' touch smiles again the frost-nipped rose,
And Virgil rules mid-winter like a king.

Crowned with a wreath of ferns and golden flowers
To our pale star bright joyous Love returns,
As if his radiant reign were but begun.
Let cold-browed Learning sway the wintry hours!
But Love, through whose wild heart June's rapture burns,
Leaps up to greet the summer and the sun.