June Is Short and We Must Joy in It

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Wednesday

To welcome in June, I share today an absolutely gorgeous poem by Francis Ledwidge, and the lyric takes on even more power when one learns about the author. That Ledwidge, who came from a poor Irish family, was killed by a German shell during World War I gives a special meaning to the lines,

…for June is short
And we must joy in it and dance and sing,
And from her bounty draw her rosy worth.

Indeed, the next line– Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south—may allude to John Keats’s ominous final line in “Ode: To Autumn”: “And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.” Ledwidge follows up his dark forecast with a powerful conclusion:

The wind wheels north to gather in the snow
Even the roses spilt on youth’s red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go.

I don’t know whether this carpé diem or “seize the day” poem was written before World War I or during—both are possible—but it certainly forecast Ledwidge’s own end. He died at 29.

June
By Francis Ledwidge

Broom out the floor now, lay the fender by,
And plant this bee-sucked bough of woodbine there,
And let the window down. The butterfly
Floats in upon the sunbeam, and the fair
Tanned face of June, the nomad gipsy, laughs
Above her widespread wares, the while she tells
The farmer’s fortunes in the fields, and quaffs
The water from the spider-peopled wells.
The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo’s light
While siren-like the pollen-stained bees
Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
The cuckoo’s voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,
Nor fear the clappers of the farmer’s boy,
Who sleeps, like drunken Noah, in the shade.

And loop this red rose in that hazel ring
That snares your little ear, for June is short
And we must joy in it and dance and sing,
And from her bounty draw her rosy worth.
Ay! soon the swallows will be flying south,
The wind wheel north to gather in the snow
Even the roses spilt on youth’s red mouth
Will soon blow down the road all roses go.