JULY.
Now is there silence through the summer woods,
In whose green depths and lawny solitudes
The light is dreaming: voicings clear ascend
Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend,
But murmurings low of inarticulate moods,
Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods,
Breathe, till o'er-drowsed the heavy flower-heads bend.
Now sleep the crystal and heat-charmed waves
Round white, sun-stricken rocks, the noontide long,
Or, 'mid the coolness of dim-lighted caves,
Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness.
Edward Dowden.