This collection of summer poems is great to add to your nature journal.

Summer poems can add a nice touch to your nature journal. These free short summer poemswere gathered from e-texts of Project Gutenberg .The sources are in the public domain. Feel free to copy and use them in your nature journal and other projects.

As a nature journal activity you can always write verses of your own.

You can wax poetic about the sunlight reflecting off the slowly moving water of the the local creek. Or how a Northern Mockingbird's tail feathers flash white sides as it flies by to its nest. It is all those special moments that you write about that will make your nature journal extra special. You'll re-read it again and again through the years.

Insects

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows--
The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine
Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--
Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;
Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

John Clare (1793-1864), English Poet

Summer Evening

The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past,--and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

John Clare (1793-1864), English Poet

Summer Winds

The wind waves over the meadows green
And shakes my own wild flowers
And shifts about the moving scene
Like the life of summer hours;
The little bents with reedy head,
The scarce seen shapes of flowers,
All kink about like skeins of thread
In these wind-shaken hours.

All stir and strife and life and bustle
In everything around one sees;
The rushes whistle, sedges rustle,
The grass is buzzing round like bees;
The butterflies are tossed about
Like skiffs upon a stormy sea;
The bees are lost amid the rout
And drop in [their] perplexity.

Wilt thou be mine, thou bonny lass?
Thy drapery floats so gracefully;
We'll walk along the meadow grass,
We'll stand beneath the willow tree.
We'll mark the little reeling bee
Along the grassy ocean rove,
Tossed like a little boat at sea,
And interchange our vows of love.

John Clare (1793-1864), English Poet

A Summer Wish

Live all thy sweet life thro',
Sweet Rose, dew-sprent,
Drop down thine evening dew
To gather it anew
When day is bright:
I fancy thou wast meant
Chiefly to give delight.

Sing in the silent sky,
Glad soaring bird;
Sing out thy notes onhigh
To sunbeam straying by
Or passing cloud;
Heedless if thou art heard
Sing thy full song aloud.

Oh that it were with me
As with the flower;
Blooming on its own tree
For butterfly and bee
Its summer morns:
That I might bloom minehour
A rose in spite of thorns.

Oh that my work were done
As birds' that soar
Rejoicing in the sun:
That when my time is run
And daylight too,
I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), English Poet

Summer

Winter is cold-hearted
Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weather-cock
Blown every way:
Summer days for me
When every leaf is on its tree;

When Robin's not a beggar,
And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
Over the wheat-fieldswide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
Swings from side to side,

And blue-black beetles transact business,
And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive.

Before green applesblush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
Is worth a month in town;
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.

Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), English Poet

The summer poems here are just a sampling of the verses available on this website. Each season on Connecting-with-Nature.net has a collection of nature poems. There are poems for autumn, winterand spring.

I hope these summer poems are useful to you. Perhaps, these verses can start a collection of summer poems for your nature journal. You can always copy them into your journal and then illustrate the page with the sketches and nature photos of the season. The "Insects" poem could be surrounded by sketches of insects you see on a goldenrod or milkweed plant. Or the plants or animals in a poems could be draw on the page surrounding the poem.

However you chose to use the summer poems, they can only add to your connecting with nature experience.

Return to Nature in Summer from Summer Poems

footer for summer poems page