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And what is so rare as a day in June

6/10/2021

 
Picture


James Russell Lowell - 1819-1891​



And what is so rare as a day in June?      
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,      
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,      
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,      
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen     
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,      
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean      
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,      
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun      
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,--
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
​
Now is the high-tide of the year,      
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,      
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop over-fills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,      
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;     
 We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,--
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,      
​Tells all in his lusty crowing!


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    Contents

    Love after Love, by Derek Walcott
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    Credentials, by Daniel Berrigan
    Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver
    A Secret Life, by Stephen
        Dunn
    Tread in Solitude, by V.
        Schoffel

    Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann
    Beannacht
    , by John
        O'Donohue

    The house was quiet and the world was calm, by Wallace
        Stevens
    A Garden Beyond Paradise, by
        Rumi
    We remember them, from a
        Jewish Book of Prayer

    The Summer Day, by Mary
        Oliver

    An African Elegy, by Ben Okri
    Variation on a Theme by Rilke,
        by Denise Levertov
    Love of the World, Charlotte
        Tall Mountain

    The Poet's Obligation, Pablo
        Neruda
    All True Vows, David Whyte
    Sea Fever, John Masefield
    The Shortest Day, Jan Sutch
        Pickard

    Song for the Open Road,  Walt
        Whitman
    Keep Walking, Rumi
    Fog in the Valley, Paul Zimmer
    Bandito, Eleanor Lerman
    The Peace of Wild Things,
       Wendell Berry
    But the silence in the mind
, 
        R.S. Thomas
    I Wandered Lonely as a
      Cloud, William Wordsworth
    A Cloth of Fine Gold,
        Dorothy Walters
    Weather, Fleur Adcock
    The Blind Old Man, Robert
           Bly
    The Three Goals, David
           Budbill
    All Roads Lead to Me, 
           Anonymous
    With that Moon Language,
         Hafiz
    The River and Its Waves are
         One Surf, Kabir
    What to Remember When
          Waking, David Whyte
    Love after Love, Derek
       Wolcott
    Last Night As I Was  
        Sleeping, Antonio
        Machado (version by
         Robert Bly
    where we are, Gerald
        Locklin
    Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
    Why I Wake Early, Mary
        Oliver
    I heard a bird sing, Oliver    
         Hereford
    I have a house where I go, 
         A.A. Milne
    Going to Walden, Mary
         Oliver

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