JULY

    THERE is a month between the swath and sheaf
                                    When grass is gone
                                    And corn still grassy,
                                    When limes are massy
                                    With hanging leaf
        And pollen-coloured blooms whereon
                                    Bees are voices we can hear,
                                    So hugely dumb
        The silent month of the attaining year.
        The white-faced roses slowly disappear
    From field and hedgerow, and no more flowers come:
                                    Earth lies in strain of powers
                                    Too terrible for flowers:
                        And would we know
                        Her burthen we must go
    Forth from the vale, and, ere the sunstrokes slacken,
        Stand at a moorland’s edge and gaze
                        Across the hush and blaze
    Of the clear-burning, verdant, summer bracken;
                        For in that silver flame
                        Is writ July’s own name.
                        The ineffectual, numbed sweet
                                    Of passion at its heat.

1894                                                                                                 MICHAEL FIELD