Dolce far niente
Summer Sun
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy’s inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
Claude Monet, Champs des coquelicots, 1881
St. Martin’s Summer
AS swallows turning backward
When half-way o’er the sea,
At one word’s trumpet summons
They came again to me –
The hopes I had forgotten
Came back again to me.
I know not which to credit,
O lady of my heart!
Your eyes that bade me linger,
Your words that bade us part –
I know not which to credit,
My reason or my heart.
But be my hopes rewarded,
Or be they but in vain,
I have dreamed a golden vision,
I have gathered in the grain –
I have dreamed a golden vision,
I have not lived in vain.
Robert Louis Stevenson (13 november 1850 – 3 december 1894)
Zie voor de schrijvers van de 27e juli ook mijn blog van 27 juli 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.