Women's Poetry About Summer

Many women poets have used summer as a metaphor or focus of their poems. Here are a few selections from the poetry library on this site, from years when women were exploring what themes were "acceptable" for women writing poetry:

• Anne Barnard (1750-1825) - My Heart is a Lute - summer has long seemed the most appropriate time for love's beginning

• Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz (?-1933) - Pamela in Town - the wooing of Pamela by the beaux of London

• Mary Kyle Dallas (1830-1897) - He'd Nothing But His Violin" - remembering spring wooing and summer wedding

• Margaret Deland (1857-1945) - Affaire d'Amour - Summer, Autumn and Winter love the peach-tree

• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) - Indian Summer - about the end of summer

• Mary Howitt (1799-1888) - The Broom Flower - celebration of a summer bloom

• Frances Anne Kemble (1809-1893) - Lament of a Mocking-Bird - remembering summer even in the winter

• Louise Chandler Moulton (1835-1908) - A Summer Wooing - the rose and the wind

• A. Mary F. Robinson (1857-1944) - An Orchard at Avignon - a word picture of a summer day

• Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) - Ballad - a woman waits for her lover who is at sea

• Augusta Webster (1837-1894) - The Pine - in the midst of winter, the pine "keeps its goodness"

Text copyright 1999-2005 © Jone Johnson Lewis .