Summer

Fishing on the Susquehanna in July by Billy Collins I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna

Vacation by Rita Dove I love the hour before takeoff

A Lesson for This Sunday by Derek Walcott The growing idleness of summer grass

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket by John Keats The poetry of earth is never dead:

After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard by Charles Wright East of me, west of me, full summer.

Miracles by Walt Whitman Why, who makes much of a miracle

Solstice by Ellen Dudley On the first full day of summer the sun is up

Psychoanalysis: An Elegy by Jack Spicer What are you thinking about?

A Green Crab's Shell by Mark Doty Not, exactly, green:

Poem for Adlai Stevenson and Yellow Jackets by David Young It's summer, 1956, in Maine, a camp resort

June Light by Richard Wilbur Your voice, with clear location of June days

A Path Between Houses by Greg Rappleye The enigma of August.

The Summer House by Tony Connor The Danube glitters and toils

This Lime Tree Bower My Prison by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Well, they are gone, and here must I remain

In the Mountains on a Summer Day by Li Po Gently I stir a white feather fan

Vespers by Louise Glück In your extended absence, you permit me

The White Room by Charles Simic The obvious is difficult

Daffy Duck In Hollywood by John Ashbery Something strange is creeping across me.

Fat Southern Men in Summer Suits by Liam Rector Fat Southern men in their summer suits

Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson In winter I get up at night

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18) by William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Summer Holiday by Robinson Jeffers When the sun shouts and people abound

They'll spend the summer by Joshua Beckman They'll spend the summer

Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child by Darcy Cummings One summer afternoon, I learned by body

Ground Swell by Mark Jarman Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,

Vertumnal [excerpt] by Stephen Yenser Close call, close call, close

Rhode Island by William Meredith Here at the seashore they use the clouds over & over

Summer X-Rays by Nina Cassian Fabulous days

Wildflower by Stanley Plumly Some--the ones with fish names--grow so north

The Fly by William Blake Little fly

Summer Images by John Clare Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned

Mint by Elaine Terranova Already, we'd be driving past

On Summer by George Moses Horton Esteville begins to burn

Summer Past by John Gray There was the summer. There

Warm Summer Sun by Mark Twain Warm summer sun

In Summer by Paul Laurence Dunbar Oh, summer has clothed the earth

Back Yard by Carl Sandburg Shine on, O moon of summer

Idyll by Siegfried Sassoon In the grey summer garden I shall find you

Summer Song by William Carlos Williams Wanderer moon

For Once, Then, Something by Robert Frost Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

Long Island Sound by Emma Lazarus I see it as it looked one afternoon

A Boy and His Dad by Edgar Guest A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip

Aftermath by Tony Connor Slumped in a prickly armchair

Anastasia & Sandman by Larry Levis The brow of a horse in that moment when

And You Thought You Were the Only One by Mark Bibbins Someone waits at my door. Because he is

Arms by Richard Tayson I’m late for the birth-

I, Up they soar by Inger Christensen I / Up they soar, the planet's butterflies,

If You Get There Before I Do by Dick Allen Air out the linens, unlatch the shutters on the eastern side,

Jack by Maxine Kumin How pleasant the yellow butter

Let Birds by Linda Gregg Eight deer on the slope

My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer by Mark Strand When the moon appears

Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina by Jack Gilbert There was no water at my grandfather's

The Abduction by Stanley Kunitz Some things I do not profess

The Fishermen at Guasti Park by Maurya Simon In the first days of summer

The Family Photograph by Vona Groarke In the window of the drawing-room

The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens She sang beyond the genius of the sea.

Jet by Tony Hoagland Sometimes I wish I were still out

The Last Slow Days of Summer by Phillip Lopate BE YOUR OWN MASTER! says the Vedanta Society sign

Making the Bed by Burt Kimmelman Summer country. In the morning the leaves

I see the boys of summer by Dylan Thomas I see the boys of summer in their ruin

Sonnet 7 [The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings] by Petrarch The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings

The Philosopher in Florida by C. Dale Young Midsummer lies on this town

On 52nd Street by Philip Levine Down sat Bud, raised his hands,

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay I know I am but summer to your heart

Summer Stars by Carl Sandburg Bend low again, night of summer stars

Midsummer by William Cullen Bryant A power is on the earth and in the air

Summer in the South by Paul Laurence Dunbar The oriole sings in the greening grove

Summer by Amy Lowell Some men there are who find in nature all

Swimming in the Presence of Lurid Opposition by Sawako Nakayasu Summer camp, swim class, Tokyo, a group of no more than twenty ants

Summer Night, Riverside by Sara Teasdale In the wild soft summer darkness

Poem at Thirty by Michael Ryan The rich little kids across the street

Sally's Hair by John Koethe It's like living in a light bulb, with the leaves

Tempest, Act V, Scene I [Where the bee sucks, there suck I] by William Shakespeare Where the bee sucks, there suck I

South by Jack Gilbert In the small towns along the river

August by Algernon Charles Swinburne There were four apples on the bough

Summer Nights and Days by Rachel Hadas So far the nights feel lonelier than the days

A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky by Lewis Carroll A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Three Songs at the End of Summer by Jane Kenyon A second crop of hay lies cut

Muffin of Sunsets by Elaine Equi The sky is melting. Me too.