While poet H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) bemoaned the stifling Heat of Summer: O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters...Fruit cannot drop through this thick air–, other poets, like Arthur Rimbaud and D.H. Lawrence, found the sensual beauty and eroticism inherent in the season to be fertile ground.
Novel by Arthur Rimbaud
Broken into four stanzas, Rimbaud’s Novel is essentially a journalistic piece, written in observation; as a young man takes in his surroundings, and ponders his significance, as an artist, easily distracted by the sights, sounds, and smells of: fine June nights!
–On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade...
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need...
In the second stanza, the seventeen year old writer’s curiosity is aroused by the mysterious movement of light and color in the sky; interrupted by an unexpected kiss.
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .
Leading ever closer to an amorous affair; the young man watches as the alluring lady saunters past, before turning to tempt him further; ending with the writer musically connoting the event.
–And cavatinas die on your lips.
The fourth and final stanza foresees a future shared between the young writer and his new lover.
You're in love. Off the market till August.
Until, an inevitability seeps into the romantic mind, and dashes the chances of the young man finally becoming a serious grown-up; the poem brilliantly comes around full-circle, returning to the very café that blinded him with beer and lemonade; after all: No one's serious at seventeen.
For an even more provocative poem by Arthur Rimbaud, read The First Encounter.
In a Boat by D. H. Lawrence
The deliriously good writer D.H. Lawrence posits a scenario in which two lovers slosh about the water in a boat, attempting to balance their affections with their desire to stay afloat; often funny, and completely sexy; In a Boat is a pure pleasure to read.
See the stars, love...
In the water...
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul...
Lawrence skillfully focuses the majority of the speaker’s sights on the stars reflected in the water; in a not so subtle attempt to dazzle his intended lover.
There, did you see
That spark fly up at us...
And what’s a passionate love affair without the threat of impending doom, to heighten the senses and raise the blood pressure.
...if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?
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