Turning, turning softly by,--
Summer earth and summer sky:
Fields of summer that will be
Summer always unto me--
Never lost, not left behind:
Always summer for my mind.

SUMMER

From what lost centuries that were sweet before,
Comes this long wave of Summer, bursting white
In shivered apple-blossoms on the shore
That is our homeland for a day and night!
A wide, hushed spirit floats above the foam,
A sweetness that was ancient flower and face,
When wine-red poppies stained the walls of Rome,
And daisies starred those summer fields of Thrace.

Something survives and haunts the leafy shade,
Some fragrance that was petals, once, and lips,
And whispered, brief avowals that they made,--
Borne hither, now, in vague, invisible ships,
Whose weightless cargoes, poured upon the air,
Are flowers forgot, and faces that were fair.

OLD SHIPS

There is a memory stays upon old ships,
A weightless cargo in the musty hold,--
Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips,
Of stormy midnights,--and a tale untold.
They have remembered islands in the dawn,
And windy capes that tried their slender spars,
The tortuous channels where their keels have gone,
And calm, blue nights of stillness and the stars.

Ah, never think that ships forget a shore,
Or bitter seas, or winds that made them wise;
There is a dream upon them, evermore;--
And there be some who say that sunk ships rise
To seek familiar harbours in the night,
Blowing in mists, their spectral sails like light.

THE TOWN

(_For Morristown, N. J._)

I

Men loved not Athens in her maiden days
More tenderly than these their tree-lined Town
Which, lacking Muses for a wider praise,
Lives in their hearts in still and sweet renown.
The market square, the wagons in the dawn,
The streets like music when their names are said,
The Sunday spire, the green, untrammelled lawn,--
These be the things on which their hearts are fed.

And one long street climbs slowly to a hill
That lifts her crosses for the Town to see
How sleep those quiet neighbours, townsmen still,
How there is peace for such as weary be ...
And as they come, each like a sleepy guest,
She takes them, one by one, and gives them rest.

II

SUNDAY MORNING

A thoughtful quiet lies upon the street,