Books
13 Poetic Verses To Give You Summer Feels
I love to turn people on to poetry. It's a life-long mission to make people who think poetry is impermeable see how friendly it really is, or can be if you open up your mind to it. Certain subject matters tend to be harder to embrace than others, but above all, odes to nature and seasons are among the most digestible.
Poets take the time to consider the ingredients of the natural world. They relate the way greenery moves to the way we move. They relate the way the oceans move to the way our moods move. They see hints of us and our humanity in everything that is not human. They find romance in the sun and the sky and the storms and the dirt. They notice colors you didn't take the time to observe. They hear songs in sounds and sense perfumes in smells.
If you listen carefully, you can see the world through their eyes, even if it's not in your nature to swoon over bugs and branches. So whether you love poetry, hate poetry, don't get poetry, or don't care about it, these lines will make you pay a little bit more attention to your natural surroundings and get you stoked about the summer.
"Back Yard" By Carl Sandburg
The clocks say I must go — I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.
Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver change
"And You Thought You Were The Only One" By Mark Bibbins
like heat lightning behind a bank of clouds
one summer night at the edge of the world.
"For Once, Then, Something" By Robert Frost
where the water gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs
"Warm Summer Sun" By Mark Twain
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.
"My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer" By Mark Strand
The earth is not yet a garden
about to be turned. The stars
are not yet bells that ring
at night for the lost.
"I See The Boys Of Summer" By Dylan Thomas
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice
"In The Summer" By Nizar Qabbani
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
"Summer Wind" By William Cullen Bryant
For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming.
"Summer For Thee, Grant I May Be" By Emily Dickinson
Summer for thee, grant I may be
When Summer days are flown!
Thy music still, when Whipporwill
And Oriole—are done!
For thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb
And row my blossoms o'er!
Pray gather me—
Anemone—
Thy flower—forevermore!
"Indian Summer" By Henry Van Dyke
At evening when the crimson crest
Of sunset passes down the West,
I hear the whispering host returning;
On far-off fields, by elm and oak,
I see the lights, I smell the smoke,--
The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.
"Fireflies In The Garden" By Robert Frost
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.
"The Summer Day" By Mary Oliver
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
“Warble For Lilac-Time” By Walt Whitman
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
