Summer Has Gone

Winter steals its unwanted self upon us and the sultry heat of forgotten summer is past, Torrents of rain painful hail have battered away our fond warm memories of a summer day, The pasture now cloying feted mud which were hard ridges that hurt unsuspecting ankles, Now the cattle in the fields breath out great plumes of steam they stand in deep puddles. The sweet air that was filled with scented wild flowers from the richest meadows has gone, The rich green seas of swaying grass and mighty oaks that groaned in breezes is now bare, Leafy masses and the refreshing voices of our summer birds both have been silenced or gone, As the shadows grow longer earlier in the day and warm nights are just gloom the magic gone. There is no warm glare when the sun does shine it is low it hurts your eyes we look away, Cool moisture of the summer months were welcomed now the foggy damp is wet, uncomfortable, The beauty of a sunny day stimulated every sense in our bodies now it stimulates the cold, Vials of clouds scudding across blue skies stroked by nature now falls as rain sleet or snow. Clouds like airy lengths of gossamer drapery amid the azure of the lofty immensity of the sun, Are now black and shaped like a blacksmiths anvil flash with lightening with heavy wet winds, Gone is the sunrise of brilliant days of the calmest and the most impressive beauty has died, And the children of men scattered over our nation are not on fields nor hills they sit indoors.