Lyric Poem · Nature
Summer in the South
The Oriole sings in the greening grove
As if he were half-way waiting,
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
Timid, and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
And the nights smell warm and pinety,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,
Streams laugh that erst were quiet,
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
And the woods run mad with riot.
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“Summer in the South” by Paul Laurence Dunbar — quilloak.com/poems/summer-in-the-south
Quick facts
- Poem
- Summer in the South
- Poet
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Length
- 12 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Summer
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 12 lines · one 12-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 7-10 syllables (median 9). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Paul Laurence Dunbar1872–1906
- Source record
- PoetryDBSummer in the South by paul-laurence-dunbar, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 a17b93253bb782a9…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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