Fragonard, “Happy Lovers”
Wednesday
This Robert Bridges poem about June has a touch of the medieval lyric “Summer is icumen in”–why else use the archaism “singeth”? It also seems to invoke the book of verses and “Thou beside me singing in the Wilderness” of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. Such poetry reminds even those of us who aren’t lovers to lie back, watch the clouds, and dip into poetry from time to time.
Leave your phone at home.
When June Is Come
By Robert Bridges
When June is come, then all the day
I’ll sit with my love in the scented hay:
And watch the sunshot palaces high,
That the white clouds build in the breezy sky.
She singeth, and I do make her a song,
And read sweet poems the whole day long:
Unseen as we lie in our haybuilt home,
O, life is delight when June is come.
