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.
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