The Polar Night and the Midnight Sun

There is light in the world,

all of which has escaped from the Sun.

Light can be seen 

and by light we can see.

How enlightening!

There is also darkness in the world.

Darkness of the mind and darkness of the sight.

The polar night, that we call kaamos,

is a tough situation.

That sunless duration,

that conquers the poles,

as our tilted globe moves

on its year-long orbit,

leaving the northern and southern caps

in alternating shade for long periods.

Close to the North Pole, in Finnish Utsjoki,

the Sun disappears below the horizon for seven weeks.

Still, in this darkest of times,

at least the suggestion of light remains.

It brings comfort, such as the scent of roasting mocha

when one is withering from coffee deprivation.

There is a similar darkness in the Antarctic.

By then, summer will have returned to the north

and joy and light will reach their zenith.

The Sun will not once consent to set.

For the tourist, the night without night denies belief.

They have to wake many times,

to peek through the blinds.

22:00 sunshine.

00:00 sunshine.

02:00 sunshine.

04:00 sunshine.

How can anyone live in such an impossible country?!

Heli Laaksonen

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

When in these golden hours

The day dawns honey-bright

And down we stroll the misty paths

Slow ripening in the light

Of second flush, of sodden roses,

Of dewy maple leaves,

We pluck the meadow of autumn lilies

And berries from the trees.

We sit in the wonder of too-soft days,

Listening for summer's parting sighs,

And drink in the sweetness

of the new-mown morning

And lie under whippoorwill skies.

 Deborah A. Bennett

The Planting of the Apple-Tree

Come, let us plant the apple-tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care,
And press it o’er them tenderly,
As, round the sleeping infant’s feet,
We softly fold the cradle sheet;
So plant we the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest;
We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind’s restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl’s silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree!
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,
While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when, above this apple-tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
And winds go howling through the night,
Girls, whose young eyes o’erflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth,
And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cintra’s vine
And golden orange of the line,
The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree
Winds and our flag of stripe and star
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And sojourners beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood’s careless day
And long, long hours of summer play,
In the shade of the apple-tree.

...............

“Who planted this old apple-tree?”
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
“A poet of the land was he,
Born in the rude but good old times;
‘T is said he made some quaint old rhymes
On planting the apple-tree.”

William Cullen Bryant 

Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too -

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

In the depths of winter I finally learned 

that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Albert Camus 

invincible=voittamaton, impossible to defeat, destroy or kill

Autumn

Pale amber sunlight falls across

The reddening October trees,

That hardly sway before a breeze

As soft as summer: summer's loss

Seems little, dear! on days like these.

Ernest Dowson

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. 

John Lubbock, The Use of Life

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

Anton Chekhov