Oh June! thou comest once again With bales of hay and sheaves of grain, That make the farmer’s heart rejoice, And anxious herds lift up their voice. I hear thy promise, sunny maid, Sound in the reapers’ ringing blade, And in the laden harvest wain, That rumbles through the stubble plain.
Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks, Of busy mills and floury sacks; Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads, Hard curving down their iron roads; Of barges grounding on their way Down winding streams to reach the bay; Of vessels spreading to the breeze Their snowy sails in stormy seas, While bearing to some foreign strand The products of this golden land.
Ye come again with cereal brows, And crescent blade, to fill the mows; And never fall thy feet too soon, Oh, ever welcome, sunny June.
Once more I see your banner spread Across the evening sky, I see your trace in shallow brooks That feebly ripple by. I see your face in mirror-lakes, In fields and forests old, And in the gardens all arrayed In crimson, blue and gold.
I hear your voice in twittering birds, That round the gables wheel, And in the humming monologues Which from the meadows steal. Oh, month of Love and plighted faith, And airy castles high! I hear you in the lover’s song And in the maiden’s sigh.
And in the breeze that gently wakes The leaves upon the bough, I feel your soothing mother-touch Caressing cheek and brow. Oh, sweet as sunrise to the lark, As noonday to the bee, Or evening to the nightingale, Is June’s return to me.
This is the anniversary of my departure from my native fields. As I sit gazing by the fire, pondering over the event, thoughts of friends far away and foes who are near, come crowding upon me numerous as spirits around some favored medium.
Many years ago I turned my back upon all I loved and setting my face against the sinking sun, cried:—
“Ho, sailors! spread your widest sails, And court the strong impellent gales, Until the stout and stubborn mast Bends like a sapling to the blast; And westward let your bearing be; My fortune lies beyond the sea.”
What a ruinous rent fifteen or twenty years make in a person’s lease of life. Why, bless my benighted understanding! the seal, the signature and the better portion of the parchment are gone. There’s hardly enough document remaining upon which to hinge a hope. Now, that I think of it, what have the departed years neglected to bring me? No flaxen heads cluster around my board; no nose is flattened against the window pane; no eye strained to mark my coming, when the granite pave is chafed by the homeward hastening feet.