Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Summer
In lang, lang days o’ simmer,
When the clear and cloudless sky
Refuses ae wee drap o’ rain
To Nature parched and dry,
The genial night, wi’ balmy breath,
Gars verdure spring anew,
An’ ilka blade o’ grass
Keps its ain drap o’ dew.
Ballantine—Its Ain Drap o’ Dew.
O thou who passest through our valleys in
Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer,
Oft pitchest here thy golden tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
Wm. Blake—To Summer.
Now simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o’er the crystal streamlet plays.
Burns—The Birks of Aberfeldy.
I question not if thrushes sing,
If roses load the air;
Beyond my heart I need not reach
When all is summer there.
John Vance Cheney—Love’s World.
The Indian Summer, the dead Summer’s soul.
Mary Clemmer—Presence. L. 62.
Oh, father’s gone to market-town, he was up before the day,
And Jamie’s after robins, and the man is making hay,
And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill,
While mother from the kitchen door is calling with a will,
“Polly!—Polly!—The cows are in the corn!
Oh, Where’s Polly?”
R. W. Gilder—A Midsummer Song.
Here is the ghost
Of a summer that lived for us,
Here is a promise
Of summer to be.
Wm. Ernest Henley—Rhymes and Rhythms.
All labourers draw hame at even,
And can to others say,
“Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
Whilk sent this summer day.”
Alexander Hume—Evening. St. 2.
Sumer is y cumen in.
Famous old Round. The music is the oldest piece of polyphonic and canonical composition in existence. This portion was written probably in 1226 by a monk, John of Fornsete, at the Abbey of Reading. Original is in Harleian MS. 978.
As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.
Isaiah. I. 8.
O for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers!
O for an iceberg or two at control!
O for a vale that at midday the dew cumbers!
O for a pleasure trip up to the pole!
Rossiter Johnson—Ninety-Nine in the Shade.
Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity.
Lamb—To V. Novello. May 9, 1826.
That beautiful season
***the Summer of All-Saints!
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. I. St. 2.
Very hot and still the air was,
Very smooth the gliding river,
Motionless the sleeping shadows.
Longfellow—Hiawatha. Pt. XVIII. L. 54.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
Longfellow—A Summer Day by the Sea.
Where’er you walk cool gales shall fan the glade,
Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade.
Where’er you tread the blushing flowers shall rise,
And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
Pope—Pastorals. Summer.
But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat,
The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat,
To closer shades the panting flocks remove;
Ye gods! and is there no relief for love?
Pope—Pastorals. Summer.
Oh, the summer night
Has a smile of light
And she sits on a sapphire throne.
B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall)—The Nights.
Before green apples blush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
Is worth a month in town.
Christina G. Rossetti—Summer.
The summer dawn’s reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue,
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kiss’d the lake, just stirr’d the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy.
Scott—Lady of the Lake. Canto III. St. 2.
Summer’s parching heat.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 81.
The middle summer’s spring.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 82.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Richard III. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 1.
Thy eternal summer shall not fade.
Sonnet XVIII.
Heat, ma’am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 267.
Then came the jolly sommer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock, coloured greene,
That was unlyned all, to be more light.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. VII. Canto VII. St. 29.
From brightening fields of ether fair-disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth;
He comes, attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way.
Thomson—Seasons. Summer. L. 1.
All-conquering Heat, O, intermit thy wrath!
And on my throbbing temples, potent thus,
Beam not so fierce! incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Pour’d on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night;
Night is far off; and hotter Hours approach.
Thomson—Seasons. Summer. L. 451.
Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert, e’en the Camel feels,
Shot through his wither’d heart, the fiery blast.
Thomson—Seasons. Summer. L. 965.