The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-05-12

Midsummer WEAKNESS doth cling TO me-
| The year hat. wrought her dazzling pageantry
! md brooLeth passive in safety.
| Wide Gains Of increase stay her restless wing,
As flight were but a pastime meet for days
| Before the idle JOY Of ripening.
| When stress OF growth compelled the forest ways
| Der spent with torrid bloom the garden burns,
| No longer to the sun in trembling turns
Her faint-hued hopes; but IN her glory spurns
| Him as rival Well she hath forgot
| How once shy perfumes wooed each passing
glance
And dropping blossoms prayed him tarry not
| Then yielded smiling to his sultry trance!
The meadow brook hath lost her song; no more
The lusty freshet brawls from shore TO shore,
Nor in strange elm voices doth implere-
Command, beseech, warn OF coming wee;
Or call her leaping comrades from afar,
Or glad the thirsty cattle as they go.
So parched and low her tinkling accents are.
The grassy folk now lul the livelong night,
Rocking the silenee-haply to requite
For ehoruses of birds too old to plight.
| know not when the red-robed cardinal
First mid the sedge and rank-grown rushe,
stood.
Nor at what hushed and measured interval
There fell an herby twilight through the wood.
Nor when upon the hills the flooding tide
OF summer broke, as up their purple side
The hoary ohestnuts, like surf fineing wide
Against foreign shore. did first appesr
In stony pastures lifts yellow cheer;
And heavy walks the grain upon the lea.
Midsummer WEAKNESS doth cling to me-
Beneath her fruitage brave the apple tree
Stops with the burden OF her dignity;
Nor longer, as in days OF budded bliss,
Doth toss at pleasure of the vagrant wind,
Or covet keen the raindrop's ieweled kiss,
Or springtde wonder in her nestlings find.
Not yet, not yet the laggard gentian blue,
That loveliest lingerer-ever true
Unto her roadside tryst Of boar and dew.
Not yet the SOLDERING of early ewes;
The ireside JOY. whose timely respite glows
With spirit of the autumn and her sheaves;
Not yet the dusky grape, or aught of those
proclaiming harbingers, The covert sign
OF sap arrested marks the solstice line;
The laugh of Summer now smile benign.
But nowhere warns the shadow of the Fall,
Though nowhere bides the busy seedtime
While imperceptible the omens crawl
Between the distant sickle and the seythe.
The cleaning corn in valiant lines arrayed,
Hath vet no rust upon the shining blade
Drawn bright against the sun; and deep in
shade
Doth ever coax and rustic, muse and sing
While underneath all musky fattery
The tasselled'ear doth hint OF harvestingi
Inc Water-ll! naTes her fragrant uredsts
Across the eloudless sky from east to west
No mysteries hid-no joy unguessed.
BY day, like some bewildered Rommany,
The crescent moon seeks out her evening trail;
The roadside gypsy sells her augury;
Nor does one looked-for token halt or fail.
Yet all unmoved we speed the step Of life
The furnished pleasure and the loosened strife,
The garnered wisdom grave, or folly rife!
Midsummer WEAKNESS doth cling to ne
Only our love shall never wax nor wane;
Eternal pain. eternal ecstasy
Earth's ebb and flow masque OF visions vain.
All, dreams of bloom and fecund sleep. We lead
Beyond the pale Of time; ere mortals heed.
Your beckOned beauties one by one recede!
Only our love shall all unchanging stand
One fixed star amid the cireling spheres
Within the rainbow that hath ever spanned
The heart OF man and passing OF the years.
Martha Gilbert Dickinson, in Scribner's Maga-
zine.