‘Two seasons’

“Flaming June” (1895), by Lord Leighton

There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed—
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return—

Two Seasons, it is said, exist—
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost—

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer?

By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), who watched the seasons with great acuity from her home, in Amherst, Mass.

'Green oracle'

“A Day in June” (1913), by George Bellows

“You are the green oracle

            cursed to remember

the seasons that circle

            like the buzzards in

the dead heat.’’

— Ian Mathes, from “A Day in June’’

“Flaming June’’ (1895), by Lord Leighton

'Blessed with truth'

Your voice, with clear location of June days,
Called me outside the window.You were there,
Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare
Of uncontested summer all things raise
Plainly their seeming into seamless air.

Then your love looked as simple and entire
As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face
As legible as pearskin's fleck and trace,
Which promise always wine, by mottled fire
More fatal fleshed than ever human grace.

And your gay gift—Oh when I saw it fall
Into my hands, through all that naïve light,
It seemed as blessed with truth and new delight
As must have been the first great gift of all. 

Richard Wilbur, "June Light''