When June is here--what art have we to sing The whiteness of the lilies midst the green Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen Like redbirds' wings? Or earliest ripening Prince-Harvest apples, where the cloyed bees cling Round winey juices oozing down between The peckings of the robin, while we lean In under-grasses, lost in marveling. Or the cool term of morning, and the stir Of odorous breaths from wood and meadow walks, The bobwhite's liquid yodel, and the whir Of sudden flight; and, where the milkmaid talks Across the bars, on tilted barley-stalks The dewdrops' glint in webs of gossamer.
American Lyrics
by Timothy Hoekman
1. When June is Here  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by James Withcomb Riley (1849 - 1916)
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]2. The Philosopher  [sung text not yet checked]
And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake? And what are you that, missing you, As many days as crawl I should be listening to the wind And looking at the wall? I know a man that’s a braver man And twenty men as kind, And what are you, that you should be The one man in my mind? Yet women’s ways are witless ways, As any sage will tell, — And what am I, that I should love So wisely and so well?
Authorship:
- by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), appears in A Few Figs from Thistles
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]3. Mend the World  [sung text not yet checked]
Come back. Let me give up this climb, these searches In trackless time and overwhelming space; Here are tall ghosts that once were elms and birches, And this small field is a deserted place. The fern you found will never learn to scatter Its yield upon the ground that you have left; The veery's round, high call will turn to chatter; Sere are these acres, weary and bereft. Against the skies earth rears its broken scaffold, Where night, so friendly once, is but a black Stupendous ruin where the mind is baffled; And the blind heart cries out its endless lack: "Come, mend the world! Come back!"
Authorship:
- by Louis Untermeyer (1885 - 1977)
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]4. Come slowly, Eden  [sung text not yet checked]
Come slowly, Eden! Lips unused to thee, Bashful, sip thy [jasmines]1, As the fainting bee, Reaching late his flower, Round her chamber hums, Counts his nectars - enters, And is lost in balms!
Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), appears in Bolts of Melody, first published 1945
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2019, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Hoekman: "Jessamines"
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]
5. i am so glad and very  [sung text not yet checked]
i am so glad and very [ ... ]
Authorship:
- by E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (1894 - 1962), appears in 50 Poems, first published 1940, copyright ©
See other settings of this text.
This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.