SUMMER HOURS
by: Horatio Alger (1832-1899)
- t is the year's high noon,
- The earth sweet incense yields,
- And o'er the fresh, green fields
- Bends the clear sky of June.
- I leave the crowded streets,
- The hum of busy life,
- Its clamor and its strife.
- To breathe thy perfumed sweets.
- O rare and golden hours!
- The birds melodious song,
- Wavelike, is borne along
- Upon a strand of flowers.
- I wander far away,
- Where, through the forest trees,
- Sports the cool summer breeze,
- In wild and wanton play.
- A patriarchal elm
- Its stately form uprears,
- Which twice a hundred years
- Has ruled this woodland realm.
- I sit beneath its shade,
- And watch, with careless eye,
- The brook that babbles by,
- And cools the leafy glade.
- In truth I wonder not
- That in the ancient days
- The temples of God's praise
- Were grove and leafy grot.
- The noblest ever planned,
- With quaint device and rare,
- By man, can ill compare
- With these from God's own hand.
- Pilgrim with way-worn feet,
- Who, treading life's dull round,
- No true repose hast found,
- Come to this green retreat.
- For bird, and flower, and tree,
- Green fields, and woodland wild,
- Shall bear, with voices mild,
- Sweet messages to thee.
"Summer Hours" is reprinted from Grand'ther Baldwin's Thanksgiving with Other Ballads and Poems. Horatio Alger. Boston: Loring Publisher, 1875. |
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