Summer Afternoon
Has June this year been too beautiful? What is, after all, “so rare as a day in June..then, if ever, come perfect days.” These words come to mind when viewing cloudless blue skies, rosebushes in bloom, along with daylilies, peonies, pinks and more. The poet who penned that perfect phrase, followed by “Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, and over it softly her warm ear lays” was James Russell Lowell, in case you were wondering. I think I think those words every year, in June, yet never knew who wrote them. Other poets I think of in summer include Virgil: “Steep thyself in a bowl of summertime.”; or the very early English verse, “Summer is Icumen in,” or Marvell who advocated: “Annihilating all that’s made; to a green thought in a green shade”, or the novelist, Henry James, who said, “Summer afternoon–summer afternoon…the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Hope you’re all enjoying your summer!