Brave Summer, scorning that the Winter take
Her prisoner, and mock her haunts on frosted pane,
With leaves flame-tinted from the wood and brake,
Arrays herself for death; no maidens twain
Aid her attiring, like old Egypt’s Queen;
With heavy dews alone for diadem,
See, weary-hearted, where she stays to lean
Against a copper-beech from whose strong stem
A faithful robin chants her requiem.

She pauses where a canopy of shade
Was lately lit by myriad dragon-flies;
There, sighing, ling’ring, views the happy glade
With wistful, tender longing in her eyes,
Musing upon the death of all the flowers
Which in her blooming coronal were set,
To herald, each a joy of coming ours.
All gone! Nay, at her feet a violet,
Has bloomed afresh to speak her comfort yet.

Shall she, remembering her glorious prime,
Her saffron dawns, and slowly widening light,
Her golden noons, the idle, perfumed time
The dial recked not of the purple night,
Vocal with song from wood and orchard grownd,
The same rich song our mother Eve first heard,
And, greatly marveling at the matchless sound,
Sweeter than any throat of warbling bird,
Felt joys unknown within her bosom stirred:

Shall she, now warned by blasts of autumn’s breath,
Not die? Or yield her to the icy foe?
Bring berries, bring bright leaves; she goes to death
Robed as a princess, as a queen should go.
Drop, gentlest dews, and in an acorn cup
Let nimble squirrels bear them to her bier;
Strew vine leaves round her, eglantine train up
To wrap her shroud, that nothing come more near
Than those sweet buds which most she love to rear.

The Death of Summer, Littel's Living Age, 1871

Music is Stranger on a Hill
Copyright 1997 by Bjorn Lynne