Famous Summer Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Summer poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous summer poems. These examples illustrate what a famous summer poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
John Keats
The church bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More harkening to the sermon's horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound
In some blind spell: seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crowned.
Still, still they toll, and I should feel...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Talk not to me of Summer Trees
The foliage of the mind
A Tabernacle is for Birds
Of no corporeal kind
And winds do go that way at noon
To their Ethereal Homes
Whose Bugles call the least of us
To undepicted Realms...Read more of this...
by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh, what is so pure as the glad summer rain,
That falls on the grass where the sunlight has lain?
And what is so fair as the flowers that lie
All bathed in the tears of the soft summer sky?
The blue of the heavens is dimmed by the rain
That wears away sorrow and washes out pain;
But we know that the flowers we cherish...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Summer has two Beginnings --
Beginning once in June --
Beginning in October
Affectingly again --
Without, perhaps, the Riot
But graphicker for Grace --
As finer is a going
Than a remaining Face --
Departing then -- forever --
Forever -- until May --
Forever is deciduous
Except to those who die --...Read more of this...
by
Fenny Sterenborg
Long curls
lightest blond
like silver and gold
in the saffron sun
Summer dresses
cool white
show lots of skin
golden brown
Painted toenails
fierce red
in summer shoes
walk by
and catch eyes
green and blue
behind black shades
against the gleam
June 20, 2006
©2006 Fenny...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Some men there are who find in nature all
Their inspiration, hers the sympathy
Which spurs them on to any great endeavor,
To them the fields and woods are closest friends,
And they hold dear communion with the hills;
The voice of waters soothes them with its fall,
And the great winds bring healing in their sound.
To them a city is a prison house
Where pent...Read more of this...
by
Stanley Kunitz
An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.
I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones
Amaded, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas here my summer paused
What ripeness after then
To other scene or other soul
My sentence had begun.
To winter to remove
With winter to abide
Go manacle your icicle
Against your Tropic Bride....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas later when the summer went
Than when the Cricket came --
And yet we knew that gentle Clock
Meant nought but Going Home --
'Twas sooner when the Cricket went
Than when the Winter came
Yet that pathetic Pendulum
Keeps esoteric Time....Read more of this...
by
Walter Savage Landor
In spring and summer winds may blow,
And rains fall after, hard and fast;
The tender leaves, if beaten low,
Shine but the more for shower and blast
But when their fated hour arrives,
When reapers long have left the field,
When maidens rifle turn'd-up hives,
And their last juice fresh apples yield,
A leaf perhaps may still remain
Upon some solitary tree,
Spite of the wind and of...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,
And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --
So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
What shall I do when the Summer troubles --
What, when the Rose is ripe --
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?
What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me --
When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?
Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's hot to-day. The bees is buzzin'
Kinder don't-keer-like aroun'
An' fur off the warm air dances
O'er the parchin' roofs in town.
In the brook the cows is standin';
Childern hidin' in the hay;
Can't keep none of 'em a workin',
'Cause it's hot to-day.
It's hot to-day. The sun is blazin'
Like a great big ball o' fire;
Seems as ef instead o' settin'
It keeps mountin' higher an'...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Twice had Summer her fair Verdure
Proffered to the Plain --
Twice a Winter's silver Fracture
On the Rivers been --
Two full Autumns for the Squirrel
Bounteous prepared --
Nature, Had'st thou not a Berry
For thy wandering Bird?...Read more of this...
by
John Clare
Remember the days of our first happiness,
how strong we were, how dazed by passion,
lying all day, then all night in the narrow bed,
sleeping there, eating there too: it was summer,
it seemed everything had ripened
at once. And so hot we lay completely uncovered.
Sometimes the wind rose; a willow brushed the window.
But we were lost in a way, didn't you feel...Read more of this...
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt
Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain's sweet might.
Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!
And how the odorous limes are blown!
Stormy Love's abroad, and keeps
Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps.
Not a blink shall burn to-night...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Summer -- we all have seen --
A few of us -- believed --
A few -- the more aspiring
Unquestionably loved --
But Summer does not care --
She goes her spacious way
As eligible as the moon
To our Temerity --
The Doom to be adored --
The Affluence conferred --
Unknown as to an Ecstasy
The Embryo endowed --...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
THE summer sun shone round me,
The folded valley lay
In a stream of sun and odour,
That sultry summer day.
The tall trees stood in the sunlight
As still as still could be,
But the deep grass sighed and rustled
And bowed and beckoned me.
The deep grass moved and whispered
And bowed and brushed my face.
It whispered in the sunshine:
"The winter comes apace."...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover.
Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt.
Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries.
Another how to catch fireflies in jar after dark.
Here is a stable with a single black mare
And the proof of God's existence riding in a red nightgown.
Devil's child--or whatever she...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
BEND low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming....Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
HER mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and o’er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth enfold,
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Oh! the calm summer garden where nothing moves! Unless it be, near the middle of the bright and radiant pond, the goldfish like tongues of fire.
They are our memories playing in our thoughts that are calm and stilled and limpid, like the trustful and restful water.
And the water brightens and the fishes leap at the abrupt and marvellous sun, not...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.
My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.
Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I know a place where Summer strives
With such a practised Frost --
She -- each year -- leads her Daisies back --
Recording briefly -- "Lost" --
But when the South Wind stirs the Pools
And struggles in the lanes --
Her Heart misgives Her, for Her Vow --
And she pours soft Refrains
Into the lap of Adamant --
And spices -- and the Dew --
That...Read more of this...
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