Poems (Bushnell)/Midsummer

by Frances Louisa Bushnell

IX
MIDSUMMER

The summer floats on even wing,
 Nor sails more far, nor draws more near,
Poised calm between the budding spring
 And sweet decadence of the year.

In shadowed fields the cattle stand,
 The dreaming river scarcely flows,
The sky hangs cloudless o'er the land,
 And nothing comes and nothing goes.

A pause of fullness set between
 The sowing and the reaping time;
What is to be and what has been
 Joined each to each in perfect rhyme.

So comes high noon 'twixt morn and eve,
 So comes full tide 'twixt ebb and flow,
Or midnight 'twixt the day we leave
 And that new day to which we go.

Full, fruitful hours by growing won,
 A restful space mid old and new
When all there was to do is done
 And nothing yet there is to do.

No days like these, so deeply blest,
 That look not backward nor before;
Their large fulfillment, ample rest,
 Make life flow wider ever more.