'Or an Eastern dream'

THESE things I remember

Of New England June,

Like a vivid day-dream

In the azure noon,

While one haunting figure

Strays through every scene,

Like the soul of beauty

Through her lost demesne.

Gardens full of roses

And peonies a-blow

In the dewy morning,

Row on stately row,

Spreading their gay patterns,

Crimson, pied and cream,

Like some gorgeous fresco

Or an Eastern dream.

Nets of waving sunlight

Falling through the trees;

Fields of gold-white daisies

Rippling in the breeze:

Lazy lifting groundswells,

Breaking green as jade

On the lilac beaches,

Where the shore-birds wade.

“A New England June,’’ by Bliss Carman (1861-1929), a once famous Canadian poet who spent much of his life in New England.