Thee freckled August, dozing hot and blonde
Oft 'neath a wheat-stack in the white-topped mead—
In her full hair brown ox-eyed daisies wound—
O water-gurgler, lends a sleepy heed:
Half-lidded eyes a purple iron-weed
Blows slimly o'er; beyond, a path-found pond
Basks flint-bright, hedged with pink-plumed pepper-grasses,
A coigne for vainest dragonflies, which glasses
Their blue in diamond.
Oft from some dusty locust, that thick weaves
With crescent pulse-pods its thin foliage gray,
Thou,—o'er the shambling lane, which past the sheaves
Of sun-tanned oats winds, red with rutty clay,
One league of rude rail-fence,—some panting day,
When each parched meadow quivering vapor grieves,
Nature's Astrologist, dost promise rain,
In seeping language of the thirsty plain,
Cool from the burning leaves.
And, in good faith, aye! best of faith, art true;
And welcome that rune-chuckled forecasting,
When up the faded fierceness of scorched blue
Strong water-carrier winds big buckets bring,
Black with stored freshness: how their dippers ring
And flash and rattle! lavishing large dew
On tall, good-humored corn that, streaming wet,
Laughs long; while woods and leas, shut in a net
Of mist, dream vague in view.
And thou, safe-housed in some pawpaw bower
Of close, broad, gold-green leaves, contented art
In thy prediction, fall'n within the hour;
While fuss the brown bees hiveward from the heart
Of honey-filtering bloom; beneath the cart
Droop pompous barnyard cocks damped by the shower:
And deep-eyed August, bonnetless, a beech
Hugs in disheveled beauty, safe from reach
On starry moss and flower.