Quotes for the Journey: Summer A porch is the only real reward you need after a long summer's day. Shawn Sell

Summer is a sailor in a rowboat and ice-cream on your dress when you're four years old.  Summer is a man with his coat off, wet sand between your toes, the smell of a garden an hour before moonrise.  Oh, summer is silk itself, a giant geranium and music from a flute far away!       -Michael Brown     Summer afternoon--summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.        -Edith Wharton     What do I want to take home from my summer vacation?  Time.  The wonderful luxury of being at rest.  The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander.  The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are.  Summer is my period of grace.      -Ellen Goodman     Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.        -John Lubbock     Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.        -Ada Louise Huxtable      Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever. . .       -E.B. White

As the days go on toward July, the earth becomes dry and all the flowers begin to thirst for moisture.  Then from the hillside, some warm, still evening, the sweet rain-song of the robin echoes clear, and next day we wake up to a dim morning; soft flecks of cloud bar the sun's way, fleecy vapors steal across the sky, the southwest wind blows lightly, rippling the water into little waves that murmur melodiously as they kiss the shore.       -Celia Thaxter

Summer is a prodigal of joy. The grass Swarms with delighted insects as I pass, And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride Jump out all ways with happiness their guide; And from my brushing feet moths flit away In safer places to pursue their play. In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may, To see such worlds of insects in the way, And more to see each thing, however small, Sharing joy's bounty that belongs to all. And here I gather, by the world forgot, Harvests of comfort from their happy mood, Feeling God's blessing dwells in every spot And nothing lives but owes him gratitude. John Clare

Hyla Brook By June our brook's run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)-- Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way its waters went. Its bed is left a faded paper sheet Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-- A brook to no one but who remember long. This as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. We love the things we love for what they are. Robert Frost

Oh, how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded, day, descending upon earth with dews and shadows and refreshing coolness!  How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites today with yesterday!      -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Summer Fields How green and bright they are!  How still they lie! The summer fields out-stretching in the sun: An emerald glory, sharp as any cry, Dipping beneath the racing winds that run Across the summer day on swift light feet, To silver the little leaning, laughing grass, To gild the tossing beads of ripening wheat. Here is peace to store within the breast Against the days of tumult and despair. Within this cool green light the heart can rest, The body strengthens in the clear clean air, The soul grows tall, the viol-string tensions cease Here in this summer stillness, summer peace. Grace Noll Crowell

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.       -James Dent

All green and fair the summer lies, Just budded from the bud of spring, With tender blue of wistful skies, And winds that softly sing. Susan Coolidge

Summer makes a silence after spring.      -Vita Sackville-West

Sultry, steaming, sweltering. . . .Slow down.  Or stop.  It's time to shed ambition and expectation, along with commutes, clothing, cellular phones, calendars.  Now our wants seem to diminish.  Is it because our needs are met?  A shady nook, a cold drink, a cool breeze--whether indoors or out.  A respite from the rigors of the day. Time off for good behavior.  Summer is not so much a season as a melody, that tune of contentment we hum as the days begin to beautifully blur.  The pursuit of happiness becomes our personal priority this month, as the sweet strains of . . . Harmony start to be heard in our hearts.       -Sarah Ban Breathnach

Once upon a time, I know not where, I know not when.  A dream, may be, Out of a pine wood, unaware, I stepped upon a quiet lea. And on the quiet meadow I Saw all around a carpet spread, Far as the line where land meets sky, Of motionless blown poppies red. And on the blood-red carpet lay, Regarded of a thousand flowers, A lovely, tired summer day In first sleep of the sunset hours. No breath.  No sound.  A bird in flight The air of evening scarce does cleave, I scarcely see his stretched wings smite, A black line in the fragrant eve. Once upon a time, I know not when, Long, long ago.  A dream, may be, But I can see it now as then, The silent, purple poppy-sea. Gustav Falke

Summer Shower A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. Emily Dickinson

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.       -Sam Keen

In summer, the song sings itself.       -William Carlos Williams

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