Today I was sitting on the front porch thanking God for the beautiful weather, praying for Tim Russert’s family (what a tough thing, just before father’s day! On Friday the 13th!), and praying for my kids and grand kids, who have a lot of little troubles too but not losing the old man at Father’s day (not today anyway, thank you Lord!-each day is a gift, and here I am 73 and Tim was 58!). Anyway, weather to be thankful for, and an old poem popped into my mind: “What is so rare as a day in June?”. We had to read it in the 8th grade and I remember thinking that May was much nicer in southern Missouri – James Russell Lowell grew up in Massachusetts – June in southern Mo. is often hot and humid, or was then. This year in Eugene, though, most of May though the first week in June was overcast, wet, cold, and windy. Now we are scheduled to have several days like this that give real meaning to JRL’s poem. I had not read it for years so looked it up. It has a lot more depth to it than I remembered – not just mooning about the beautiful day. Basically he ends up saying (or meaning) that the tough times, like winter, come, but so does Spring and it covers them over for the time being so we don’t remember for a while. Anyway, I thought I would paste it here – sorry for the long preamble:
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;
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;
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;
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?
Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-
'Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
James Russell Lowell