6 SUMMER 



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.' 



It is June, not July, with Lowell, too ; and he is thinking not 

 of the mute nightingale, but the bobbing bobolink. Most of 

 the summer songs there are find their inspiration in the 

 water rather than the land. You will mark this especially in 

 the work of the present Laureate, who is a great teller of the 

 seasons. He loves January and February and May and 

 September and October ; but in summer his thoughts belong 

 to lazy days on the Thames beside which 



' The lazy cows wrench many a scented flower, 

 Robbing the golden market of the bees ; 



And laden barges float 



By banks of myosote ; 

 And scented flag and golden flower-de-lys 



Delay the loitering boat.' 



July is perhaps the month most expressly deserted by the 

 poets. From June they leap, if no further, at 'least to 

 August and harvest time, which is almost autumn. Possibly 

 one of the most perfect summer pieces in the language is 

 Matthew Arnold's 'Scholar Gipsy,' in which the most 

 English Oxford county in the summer time is brought clear 

 before our eyes. 



' Here, where the reaper was at work of late, 



In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves 



His coat, his basket and his earthen cruse, 

 And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, 



Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use ; 



Here will I sit and wait, 

 While in my ear from uplands far away 

 The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, 

 With distant cries of reapers in the corn, 

 All the live murmur of a summer day. 



