Poems about summer exude the vibrant essence of the season, celebrating its warmth, abundance, and carefree spirit.
Poets capture the sensory delights of summer, from the aroma of freshly cut grass to the taste of sweet, juicy fruits. These poems often evoke nostalgia and joy, recalling cherished memories of carefree summers past.
They may also delve into the symbolism of summer as a time of growth, renewal, and the fullness of life. Poems about summer invite readers to bask in the season’s splendor and embrace the fleeting beauty of its moments.
‘June’ by James Russell Lowell is a religiously-charged romantic narrative poem about the overwhelming beauty and rejuvenating power of summer.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
‘From Blossoms’ describes the simple joys of summer. It uses peaches to explore the vivid interconnectedness of the world.
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
‘As imperceptibly as grief’ by Emily Dickinson analyzes grief. The poet compares it to the passing away of the summer.
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away—
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy—
‘A drop fell on the apple tree’ by Emily Dickinson is filled with joy. It describes, with Dickinson’s classic skill, images of the summer season and how a storm can influence it.
A drop fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.
‘Summer Solstice, New York City’ by Sharon Olds is a deeply moving poem that conveys the tender importance of remembering our capacity for human compassion.
By the end of the longest day of the year he could not stand it,
he went up the iron stairs through the roof of the building
‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?,’ also known as ‘Sonnet 18,’ is one of the Fair Youth poems. It is addressed to a mysterious male figure that scholars have been unable to identify.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
‘My Garden — like the Beach’ by Emily Dickinson is a beautiful, short poem. It compares the speaker’s garden to the beach and the summer to the sea. Read the full poem, with a complete analysis.
My Garden—like the Beach—
Denotes there be—a Sea—
That's Summer—
‘Waves of summer grass’ by Matsuo Bashō is a beautiful and sorrowful haiku poem about loss and death symbolized in nature.
Waves of summer grass:
All that remains of soldiers’
Impossible dreams.
‘A Bird Song’ by Christina Rossetti describes, through the interactions of swallows, the need a speaker has for a consistent companion.
It's a year almost that I have not seen her:
Oh, last summer green things were greener,
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.
‘A Dirge’ by Christina Rossetti is a thoughtful and moving poem about death. It speaks on the birth and death of an important person in the speaker’s life.
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
O world! O life! O time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
‘Afternoons’ by Philip Larkin presents a brief depiction of post-war Britain. He explores less than ideal family relationships and gives the period an overall gloomy tone.
Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
‘And Soul’ by Eavan Boland is a poem about death and a body’s dissolution into the elements that it is made up of. The poet emphasizes the connection between a human being made nearly entirely of water and a city that’s drenched by a particularly rainy summer season.
‘Artist’s Life’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox describes the personal and emotional connection a speaker has to Strauss’ composition, Artist’s Life.
‘Hearing the Battle.—July 21, 1861’ by Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt describes one speaker’s curiosity regarding the happenings of a distant battle.
Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;
I have lov'd, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
‘May’ by Christina Rossetti describes an unknown, now finished, event a speaker experienced in the warm, young and pleasant month of May.
‘Old Song’ by Edward FitzGerald describes a speaker depression over the long weeks of winter, and eventual joy over the coming spring.
‘Olives’ is the title poem of A.E. Stallings’ third book of poetry by the same name. It explores the features of the fruit and its resemblance to her poems.
‘Poem in October’ tells of a speaker’s journey out of autumn and up a hill to reclaim childhood joy, the summer season and his spirituality.
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
‘Ragged Island’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a personal poem about Millay’s days spent on Ragged Island off the coast of Maine. It explores the peace of mind the place was able to bring out in her.
‘September Midnight’ by Sara Teasdale tells of a speaker’s affection for the last days of summer and all the sights and sounds that go with it.
‘Something Told the Wild Geese’ by Rachel Field discusses geese, and other animals, reactions to signs of winter. The poem takes place in summer and warns against being unprepared and dwelling on unhappiness.
‘Song of the Flower’ by Khalil Gibran describes what the life of a flower involves, from sunrises and weddings to perpetual optimism.
‘Song: How sweet I roam’d from field to field’ by William Blake describes the wanderings of a woman who is captured by Apollo.
How sweet I roam'd from field to field,
And tasted all the summer's pride,
'Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the sunny beams did glide!
Read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 6, also known as ‘Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface’, with a deep dive analysis into the poem.
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.
‘Spring and Fall’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins uses a unique rhyme scheme and the concept of nature’s demise as a representation of something much deeper.
‘Summer Morn in New Hampshire’ by Claude McKay describes how one speaker is unmoved by the brilliance of day as he is too consumed by his love for another.
‘Summer Past’ by John Gray describes a past summer which contained elements much treasured by the speaker for their divine and natural beauty.
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