Saturday Rave: From My Diary, July 1914 by Wildred Owen.

The month of May has loads of poems, and so does June. August brings the poetic joys of holidays and harvest.

But July poems?

Not so many. It's a rather exhausting month, July: it's basically June with the freshness taken off it.

Anyway, here's an example of a July poem. Well, it's a bit of verse, really - and not terribly good verse, at that. It was written by the very great poet Wilfred Owen in the month before the start of World War I.

If you're at all familiar with Wilfred Owen's war poetry then it's really interesting. 

If you know that Wilfred Owen was gay then it's interesting, too.

From My Diary, July 1914

Leaves
Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer, scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.

Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling cold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.

The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.

Word To Use Today: ebony. This word, which describes the very hard and black wood of a group of tropical trees, goes right back through Latin and Greek to an Egyptian word hbny. The trees grow further south than Egypt, though, in Africa, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.