Midsummer Warning

By Ogden Nash

August is suburn and moonlight,
August's a menace to men;
When the casual canoer discovers l'amouer,
August has done it again.
August is moonlight and sunburn,
When the bachelor sows what he reaps;
His sunburn will finally unburn,
But he's burned in the moonlight for keeps.

To a Friend who sent me some Roses

AS late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert; - when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.

~Keats