There’s romance in the air, in these two litanies to summer’s wild flowers and youthful passions. The poet is Helen B Cruickshank; the two pieces come from her Collected Poems (Reprographia, 1971).

         UNREGARDED SONG

I will pick my love a hundred milkworts,

Sprigs of the tiny milkwort, turquoise-blue

From turfy banks and little heather hummocks

Noon-warm, or wet with dew.

~

I will pick my love a hundred milkworts

Building my massy bouquet by degrees,

Fifty today, the rest by noon tomorrow,

Robbing the early bees.

~

I will pick my love a hundred milkworts

In crystal air, song-threaded by the wren,

Where conies jink and bob about their warren,

And cuckoo chimes again.

~

I will give my love a hundred milkworts,

Her gentle hands will span their rush-tied blue,

Of simple country pleasurings the symbol,

And say – My dear, for you.

                     IN JULY

The summer air is sweet with hay,

The silken oats are shot with red.

The hedgerows that were starred with may

Bear roses now instead.

~

The honeysuckle decks the lane,

And rosebay willow-herb the hill,

And fragrant meadowsweets again

The grassy ditches fill.

~

But camp-fire smoke, and bell-tent hood,

And merry whistling lads from town

By splashing stream or shady wood,

Are surely summer’s crown.