Compliments of our friend and poetry guru Katie O’Neil

Summer’s in full swing now, and being outside all the time makes you think of how lovely the earth is, and that classic Shakespeare poem:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,Pink Lemonade, Summer, Outdoors
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
 
 
The famous female writer L.M. Montgomery also has an excellent piece in “A Summer Day”:


The dawn laughs out on orient hills 
And dances with the diamond rills; Romance, Home, Garden, Mood, Atmosphere
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs 
The silken, beaded gossamers; 
In the wide valleys, lone and fair, 
Lyrics are piped from limpid air, 
And, far above, the pine trees free                                            
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea. 
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway 
With hope and courage of the day. 


II 

Noon, hiving sweets of sun and flower, 
Has fallen on dreams in wayside bower, 
Where bees hold honeyed fellowship 
With the ripe blossom of her lip; 
All silent are her poppied vales 
And all her long Arcadian dales, 
Where idleness is gathered up 
A magic draught in summer’s cup. 
Come, let us give ourselves to dreams 
By lisping margins of her streams. 


III 

Adown the golden sunset way Landscape, Sunset, Trees, Sky, Embers
The evening comes in wimple gray; 
By burnished shore and silver lake 
Cool winds of ministration wake; 
O’er occidental meadows far 
There shines the light of moon and star, 
And sweet, low-tinkling music rings 
About the lips of haunted springs. 
In quietude of earth and air 
‘Tis meet we yield our souls to prayer. 

Kathryn is a retired junior high teacher. A convert with a love for the Church she believes that its teachings have a more than viable application for today's world. She writes practical theological for the people in the pews believing that they have as much right to good catechesis as our youth and converts. Her writings appear on Catholic web sites and local Church publications. She has even been published in the diocese of Australia and most recemtly Zenit. Kathryn holds a Master's in Theology and is a certified spiritual director. Learn more about Kathryn at: www.atravelersview.org