Barefoot, trip through the meadow lane,
Laughing at bruise and scratch;
Come, with your hands all rich with stain
Fresh from the blackberry patch;
Come where the orchard spreads its store
And the breath of the clover greets;
Quick! they are waiting you here once more,--
Grandfather's "summer sweets."

Grandfather's "summer sweets" are ripe,
Out on the gnarled, old tree--
Out where the robin redbreasts pipe,
And buzzes the bumblebee;
Swinging high on the bending bough,
Scenting the lazy breeze,
What is the gods' ambrosia now
To apples of gold like these?

* * * * *

MIDSUMMER

Sun like a furnace hung up overhead,
Burnin' and blazin' and blisterin' red;
Sky like an ocean, so blue and so deep,
One little cloud-ship becalmed and asleep;
Breezes all gone and the leaves hangin' still,
Shimmer of heat on the medder and hill,--Labor
and laziness callin' to me: