Featured Poem: Summer Selection
As a special treat this week, to see out the remaining days of summer - as well as make the most of the last Bank Holiday for a few months - The Reader Online has a plethora of poetry for you to enjoy on this prolonged weekend, while hopefully you'll be getting the chance to relax and do a little more reading than usual. You may also notice that this selection gives a specific taste of summer and its associated activities - so even if the sun isn't out (which probably is the most likely case here in Britain), the following lines should bring out the rays in poetic style.
Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on
Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy
Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.
A Boy's Summer Song - Paul Laurence Dunbar
With line and hook
By a babbling brook,
The fisherman's sport we ply;
And list the song
Of the feathered throng
That flit in the branches nigh.
I Saw From the Beach - Thomas Moore
I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
Where Go the Boats? - Robert Louis Stevenson
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating—
Where will all come home?
Summer Shower - Emily Dickinson
The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.
Before Summer Rain - Rainer Maria Rilke
Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence.
An August Midnight - Thomas Hardy
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
When Summer's End Is Nighing - A.E Housman
When summer's end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.
Share
Related Articles

The Storybarn Selects… From The Reader Bookshelf
The Reader Bookshelf is a carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year,…

February’s Choice From The Reader Bookshelf
The Reader Bookshelf is a carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year, this year’s…

In Conversation with ground-breaking dual-heritage author Jacqueline Roy at The Reader, Liverpool.
The author Jacqueline Roy will be in Liverpool discussing her ‘forgotten’ novel The Fat Lady Sings, republished as part of…