William Stanley Braithwaite, "Lyrics for June" (1902)
Echo, echo why so speed ye?
Can our Pan be jumping nigh?
Tell me, what sweet music lead ye
From thy sylvan haunt near by?
Echo, echo why so fleeting
To the mountain glen retreating?
Echo, wert thou sleeping well,
Drowned in summer's languid lull,
Till Pan's piping set the dell,
Ringing low and beautiful
With thy voices' murmuring leap
Travelling o'er the hill and deep?
II
Birdie, when you pass
Murmuring,
Where my lovely lass
By the spring
Sleeps beneath the grass,
Hum no tune of love, I pray,
Lest she weep, where chill'd, she lay.
Only dream the trill
You would send
When the grove is still
And vesp'rs wend
'Round the hushed and leafy hill,
To your dreamy mate among
Blooms that faint beneath your song
Should your heart be overful
And outpour
Tender strains most beautiful
Gently low'r
To her ears some pensive lull
Low and sympathetic strains
Full of deep and tender pains.
III
I went down the ways of the roses this noon,
The birds were in time with the infinite skies
And all my heart sang "It is June! it is June!"
And all my soul teemed with the lovely surprise,
As I went down the ways of the roses this noon.
And into my garden the shades bade them come,
The wayfaring dreams that came forth of the sun;
"Come rest," said the roses, "ere further ye roam;"
"Be my guests," said my heart, "till the day it be done"--
As into my garden the shades bade them come.
O long the dreams tarried within that sweet place;
And unto my heart and the roses, they told,
How on their long travel they met with a face
All clouded with hair of the sun's fairest gold
And my heart and the roses sighed in the sweet place.
Published in Colored American Magazine, June 1902