“Sweet July, warm July!
Month when mosses near the stream,
Soft green mosses thick and shy,
Are a rapture and a dream.
Summer Queen! whose foot the fern
Fades beneath while chestnuts burn;
I welcome thee with thy fierce love,
Gloom below and gleam above.
Though all the forest trees hang dumb,
With dense leafiness o’ercome;
Though the nightingale and thrush,
Pipe not from the bough or bush;
Come to me with thy lustrous eye,
Azure-melting westerly,
The raptures of thy face unfold,
And welcome in thy robes of gold!
Tho’ the nightingale broods-‘sweet-chuck-sweet’ –
And the ouzel flutes so chill,
Tho’ the throstle gives but one shrilly trill
To the nightingale’s ‘sweet-sweet.'”
For July’s poem we have selected the second verse of “July” by George Meredith and to accompany this verse we have chosen the wonderful “Waiting for a Bite, Central Park” by John George Brown
