June's Perfect Summer Days

(Knot Garden, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, copyright 2012, Jane Heitman Healy)

What is your idea of a perfect day?

Here is James Russell Lowell's:

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;


(Isle Royale trail, copyright 2008, Jane Heitman Healy)

Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;


(Clematis, copyright 2012, Jane Heitman Healy)

The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;

(pronghorn antelope, http://www.public-domain-image.com/fauna-animals-public-domain-images-pictures/antelope-pictures/pronghorn-antelope-pictures/pronghorn-antelope-runs-gingerly-across-a-meadow.jpg.html)

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

(Song Thrush, © Copyright Brian Robert Marshall and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence, http://www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=682555)

Read the entire poem, "The Vision Of Sir Launfal," from which these selections were taken. Learn more about James Russell Lowell . And do let me know your idea of a perfect day or which of Nature's songs you think is best.