Now have I done with pipings at the Dawn,
Or sombre chords for Evening of the Year:
Now into yon bright throng I will be drawn
Who let their voices out for Summer cheer.
Life, Life , they sing, who cannot know a fear,
Who think it shall be theirs — eternal boon!
O Nature, let me not recall the sere;
Tauten my heartstrings till they be atune
Like these, thy latest-born, to sing the Year's High Noon!

'Tis all at her behest, who fills each chalice
With wine that hath been twelve months ripening,
And she hath made of Earth a sumptuous palace.
This, this, to June! Drink, every soul, and sing
Until the fresh-trimmed greenwood rafters ring,
And even dark pines with silvery gray festoon!
June only asks, as sacrifice, we bring
Care, Fret and Grief, the mortal's plague triune,
And cast them in her lustral fire — the Fire of Noon.

In spiraling ecstasy the meadow bird
Makes upward — self and song, to greet the sun;
And where is set the apple's globe, is heard
The bubbling of the wren's trill, never done,
(Oh, sweeter never than while raindrops run
Down the scored bark!) And, in the nights with moon,
Comes from half-wakened thrush its orison,
Or blissful memory of its nesting rune:
Such voices serve the altar of the Year's High Noon.

A dizzying wave sweeps through the blowing grain!
The choric trees their unbound locks advance;
Even the little hills shake out their mane
Of grasses plumed and flowers of golden glance:
All swim together as in swirling trance!
You scarce shall trace her by her flashing shoon,
But 'tis June's way — the call to dance, to dance!
Sent on the ruffling breeze; and then, as soon,
Shall all again fall slumbering in the Year's High Noon.