MIDSUMMER
Around this lovely valley rise
The purple hills of Paradise.
Oh, softly on yon banks of haze,
Her rosy face the Summer lays!
Becalmed along the azure sky
The argosies of cloudland lie,
Whose shores, with many a shining rift,
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.
Through all the long midsummer day
The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.
John Townsend Trowbridge.