"As for me, I know nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under the trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sleep in bed at night with any one I love,
Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon...
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown,
Or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring...
What stranger miracles are there?"
-  Walt Whitman 

"Whilst August yet wears her golden crown,
    Ripening fields lush- bright with promise;
Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing
    Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn."
-  Michelle L. Thieme, August's Crown 

"How sociable the garden was.
We ate and talked in given light.
The children put their toys to grass
All the warm wakeful August night."
-  Thomas Gunn, Last Days at Teddington

Ah, Sun-flower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done:
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
-  William Blake

"And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
And gently swells the wind to say all's well;
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.

I am well drenched upon my bed of oats;
But see that globe come rolling down its stem,
Now like a lonely planet there it floats,
And now it sinks into my garment's hem.

Drip drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distills from every bough;
The wind alone it is makes every sound,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.

For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so;
My dripping locks--they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go."
-  Henry David Thoreau, The Summer Rain

"What dreadful hot weather we have! 
It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."
-  Jane Austen  

"Birds fly in formation;
Tree leaves sway from side to side;
Clouds gather in small huddles,
discussing the weather;
Grass shoots shoot up once more,
their roots replenished;
A Phoenix nearby hums his Ode;
Tranquility is in place,
after the long bitter wait;
Alive, now, is the world."
-  J. I. Stuart, August

"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet."
-  William Shakespeare

"Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones."
-  Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir

"Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it
It sound of funeral or of marriage bells."
-  Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat."
-  Ann Landers

"There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!"
-  Percy Bysshe Shelley  

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date."
-  William Shakespeare 

"The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room."
-  Horace Walpole

"August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied."
-  Joseph Wood Krutch  

"It is God in the house when the curtains lift gently at the windows, and a young child sucks his itching gums.
We do not understand the mysteries of God.
God the winter. Summer, Septembers.
Moody dark tones of fathers dying.
The splash and laughter.
Children playing."
-  Ellease Southerland 

"Oh that I could see to the Other Realm –
that I could learn the magic of the Ancients.
Oh that the secrets of the Druids
could be whispered in my ears
that I might know their beauty and their power –
that I might love again this land
and hear the voices of the Goddess and the God
in the trees and in the rivers."
-  Damh the Bard

"When on a summer's morn I wake,
And open my two eyes,
Out to the clear, born-singing rills
My bird-like spirit flies.

To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush,
Or any bird in song;
And common leaves that hum all day
Without a throat or tongue.

And when Time strikes the hour for sleep,
Back in my room alone,
My heart has many a sweet bird's song --
And one that's all my own."
-  William Henry Davies, When on a Summer's Morn

"From the great trees the locusts cry
In quavering ecstatic duo--a boy
Shouts a wild call--a mourning dove
In the blue distance sobs--the wind
Wanders by, heavy with odors
Of corn and wheat and melon vines;
The trees tremble with delirious joy as the breeze
Greets them, one by one--now the oak
Now the great sycamore, now the elm."
-  Hamlin Garland

"When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue."
-  Mary Oliver, August

"People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy."
-  Anton Chekhov

"If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest; if there were no winter, there would be no summer."
-  St. John Chrysostom 

"August, the eighth month of the current Gregorian calendar and the third month of Summer’s rule, derives its name from Augustus (Augustus Caesar).  The traditional birthstone amulets of August are the peridot and the sardonyx; and the gladiolus and the poppy are the month’s traditional flowers.  August is shared by the astrological signs of Leo the Lion and Virgo the Virgin, and is sacred to the following Pagan deities: Ceres, the Corn Mother, Demeter, John Barleycorn, Lugh, and all goddesses who preside over agriculture.  During the month of August, the Great Solar Wheel of the Year is turned to Lammas, one of the four Grand Sabbats celebrated each year by Wiccans and modern Witches throughout the world."
-  Secrets of a Witch

"I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year."
-  Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Good weather all the week, but come the weekend the weather stinks. 
Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and all Seasons for dying.
Ripening grapes in the summer sun - reason enough to plod ahead. 
Springtime flows in our veins.  
Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener Her salve. 
A soul is colored Spring green.  
Complexity is closer to the truth. 
All metaphors aside - only living beings rise up in the Springtime; dead beings stay quite lie down dead. 
Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn into firewood - on the chopping block of time. 
Fresh fruit from the tree - sweet summertime! 
Gardens are demanding pets. 
Shade was the first shelter. 
When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door. 
One spring and one summer to know life's hope; one autumn and one winter to know life's fate. 
Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday. 
Relax and be still around the bees. 
Paradise and shade are close relatives on a summer day. 
Absolutes squirm beneath realities. 
The spiders, grasshoppers, mantis, and moth larva are all back:  the summer crowd has returned!
To garden is to open your heart to the sky.
Dirty fingernails and a calloused palm precede a Green Thumb." 
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions

"The Chinese also have a day devoted to love. Qi Qiao Jie, or the seventh eve, is often referred to as Chinese Valentine's Day.  While the annual gift giving commonly associated with St. Valentine's Day doesn't take place, there are several charming customs associated with this romantic day for lovers.  There are two legends surrounding the origins of Chinese Valentine's Day. Both involve the position of the stars on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar (August 11th in the year 2005).  According to the first version (my favorite), the seven daughters of the Goddess of Heaven caught the eye of a Cowherd during one of their visits to earth.  The daughters were bathing in a river and the Cowherd, Niu Lang, decided to have a bit of fun by running off with their clothing. It fell upon the prettiest daughter (who happened to be the seventh born), to ask him to return their clothes.  Of course, since Niu Lang had seen the daughter, Zhi Nu, naked, they had to be married. The couple lived happily for several years. Eventually however, the Goddess of Heaven became fed up with her daughter's absence, and ordered her to return to heaven.  However, the mother took pity on the couple and allowed them to be reunited once a year.  Legend has it that on the seventh night of the seventh moon, magpies form a bridge with their wings for Zhi Nu to cross to meet her husband."
-  Rhonda Parkinson and  Night of Sevens (Qi Xi, Qi Qian Jie)

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?"
-  Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.
Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence."
-  Hal Borland

"The summer night is like a perfection of thought."
-  Wallace Stevens  

Lughnasadh, Lammas, Summer Festivals: Extensive Bibliography, Links, Lore, Poems, Prayers, Preparations, Crafts

"Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn,
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn."
-  William Morris, Summer Dawn

"A life without love is like a year without summer."
-  Swedish Proverb

"The English winter, ending in July
To recommence in August."
-  Lord Byron

"Give me the joys of summer,
Of Summer Queen so fair,
With wealth of lovely flowers
And fruits and sun-kissed air!

Talk not to me of winter
With ice and frost and snow,
Nor changing spring and autumn
When howling winds will blow.

No, I will take the joys
Of Summer every time,
So to this Queen of Seasons
I dedicate my rhyme."
-  Winifred Sackville Stoner, Midsummer Joys

"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" 
-  Steven Wright 

"Last summer I was staying at a house in Hampshire which was famous for the brilliance and the originality of its gardens.  There were many of them, but the most beautiful of all was a walled garden in which every flower was blue.  There were all the obvious things like delphiniums and acronitums and larkspurs, but the most beautiful blue of all came from the groups of cabbages - the ordinary blue pickling cabbage.  Set against the blazing blue of the other flowers, it had a bloom and elegance which made it a thing of the greatest delight."
-  Beverly Nichols 

"When gardeners garden, it is not just plants that grow, but the gardeners themselves."
-  Ken Druse

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers."
-  Jonathan Swift

"A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
"Like one that hears it rain.""
-  James Whitcomb Riley, A Summer Afternoon

"This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders."
-  Sarah Orne Jewett, The Courting of Sister Wisby, 1887  

"Under the summer sun,
thirty birds feeding
on figs.
Young tree branches
sagging so low -
ripe peaches.
Still in the shade,
on wet soil,
a black dragonfly.

An old mind
surprised by seeing
a purple fairy at sunset,
dancing to the crickets' tunes,
leaping as guinea hens screech,
wary of the bats,
hovering to say,
"Lugh's Day, Lugh's Day."

Crackling fires
glowing
under the full moon.
Peace in the Valley."
-  Michael Garofalo, Lugh's Day

"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space."
-  Rachel Carson

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."
-  Celia Thaxter

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."
-  Sam Keen

"This is the river of the great 19th-century landscapists; of Cole, Cropsey and Church, and at the end of the summer it lies motionless under the haze as under a light coat of varnish."
-  Judith Thurman 

"Even with insects -
some can sing,
some can't."
-  Kobayashi Issa

"Let me enjoy this late-summer day of my heart while the leaves are still green and I won't look so close as to see that first tint of pale yellow slowly creep in. I will cease endless running and then look to the sky ask the sun to embrace me and then hope she won't tell of tomorrows less long than today. Let me spend just this time in the slow-cooling glow of warm afternoon light and I'd think I will still have the strength for just one more last fling of my heart."
- John Bohrn, Late August

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."
- Warren Buffett

"The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco."
-  Mark Twain 

"August rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a match flame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away."
-  Elizabeth Maua Taylor, August  

"A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows."
-  St. Francis of Assisi 

"When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn."
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify

Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now."
-  Emily Dickinson, Further in Summer Than the Birds

"Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head."
-  Li Po, Summer in the Mountains

" Yes, long shadows go out
from the bales; and yes, the soul
must part from the body:
what else could it do?

The men sprawl near the baler,
too tired to leave the field.
They talk and smoke,
and the tips of their cigarettes
blaze like small roses
in the night air. (It arrived
and settled among them
before they were aware.)

The moon comes
to count the bales,
and the dispossessed--
Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will
--sings from the dusty stubble.

These things happen. . .the soul's bliss
and suffering are bound together

The last, sweet exhalations
of timothy and vetch
go out with the song of the bird;
the ravaged field
grows wet with dew." 
-  Jane Kenyon, Twilight: After Haying

"Hot town summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city."

"And where have you been, my Mary,
And where you been from me?"
"I've been to the top of the Caldon Low,
The midsummer night to see!"
"And what did you see, my Mary,
All up on the Caldon Low?"
"I saw the glad sunshine come down,
And I saw the merry winds blow."
"And what did you hear, my Mary,
All up on the Caldon Hill?"
"I heard the drops of the water made,
And the ears of the green corn fill."
"Oh! tell me all, my Mary -
All, all that ever you know;
For you must have seen the fairies
Last night on the Caldon Low."
-  Mary Howitt, The Fairies of Caldon Low 

Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun 

Secrets to Great Soil (Gardening Skills Illustrated) by Elizabeth Stell 

Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels 

Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners by James Nardi 

Soil (True Books: Natural Resources) by Christin Ditchfield 

Soil Science Simplified by Helmut Kohnke 

Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan 

"Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do
'Cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues."
-  Eddie Cochran   

Astrological Signs:  Leo ,  July 23 - August 22

"Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes."
-  Robert Louis Stevenson, Summer Sun 

"mother’s parasol
I unfold the dust
of other summers"
-  Ernest J. Berry

"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, Summer Evening, 1848

"'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head."
-  Emily Bronte, Moonlight, Summer Moonlight

"We are all flowers in the garden of the world.
Some of us are daisys dainty and bright.
Some of us are poppys,with sweet contagious laughter.
If there was a flower for you,
Youd be a wild orchid,
So full of life,colors alive,
Sprinkled with scarlett and purple,
Explosions of colors racing through your petals."
-  Lanie Costea, A Wild Orchid