The Sun-Burnt Hours

Sonnet to the Month of August
by Charles Leftley

August, I welcome thee and all thy hours,
The sun-burnt hours, that dance about thy car,
Thy genial breezes, and refreshing showers,
Thy morning pageantry, and evening star.
Bright are thy smiles, and blithe thy votaries are,
For thou dost bring them harvests, fruits, and flowers,
Enlivening gifts, and more enlivening far,
The laughing vine to glad their clustering bowers.
Yet, August, though these various gifts be dear,
'Tis not for these I time my thankful strain;
No; but for Phyllis! (fye, why drops this tear?)
Whom thou hast sent o'er my fond heart to reign;
Oh! may she live to pleasure many a year,
Although she live to give her minstrel pain.