Lightsome, laughter-loving June,
  Days that swoon
  In beds of flowers;
Twilights dipped in rose perfume,
  Nights of gloom
  Washed clear by showers.
Suns that softly sink to rest
  In the west,
  All purple barred;
And a faint night-wind that sighs
  Under skies
  Still, silver-starred.
Languorous breaths of meadow land
  Overspanned
  By clouds like snow;
And a shouting from the brooks,
  Where in nooks
  Late violets grow.
June, ah, June, to lie and dream
  By the stream,
  And in the maze
Of thy spells never to heed—
  How they speed,
  Thy witching days;
Watching where the shadows pass.
  And the grass
  All rustling bends,
While the bees fly east and west,
  On a quest
  That never ends.
Thus to shun the whirl of life,
  Freed from strife
  And freed from care—
Hear, as when a lad I heard
  How the bird
  Sings, high in air.
June, to hear beneath the skies
  Lullabies
  That night airs blow;
Ah, to find upon thy breast
  That pure rest
  I used to know!