WHEN SUMMER COMES by Dora Sigerson Shorter
Photography courtesy Nadin Sh
When summer comes, then you are near to me,
I feel your phantom presence on my heart,
In every wind the dead year speaks again,
And every scene springs up to take its part.
'Twas such a day, as sweet a wind arose.
To kiss with perfumed Ups your brown blown hair;
With brow perplexed and that odd smile you had,
I wondered what you thought of, standing there.
'Twas here I stooped to pluck a drooping flower,
You prayed so foolishly that vou might keep;
And here you turned a moment's space so cold,
I only laughed for fear that I should weep.
O phantom love I that haunts me restlessly.
That from my passionate hands will ever fly,
Fate owes me this, I will pursue and hold,
Or, finding you but shadow, let me die.
Irish poet Dora Sigerson Shorter (1866-1918) belonged to the generation of writers who helped shape the Irish Literary Revival at the turn of the twentieth century. While many of her contemporaries focused on nationalism and folklore, Sigerson often turned her attention toward the inner world - love, memory, grief, longing, and the emotional landscapes that linger long after a moment has passed. Her work is marked by rich natural imagery and a distinctly feminine perspective, where the changing seasons become mirrors for the human heart.
The poem When Summer Comes captures a side of Midsummer that is often overlooked. Today, the Summer Solstice is frequently associated with celebration, flower crowns, bonfires, abundance, and the height of the sun's power. Yet throughout European folklore and folk magical traditions, Midsummer was also believed to be a liminal time - a threshold when the veil between worlds grew thinner and the past felt closer than usual.
In Sigerson's poem, summer arrives not merely as a season but as an invocation. The warmth of the wind, the scent of flowers, and the familiar landscape awaken the memory of a lost love. The beloved appears as a "phantom presence," suggesting that the season itself has become haunted by remembrance. Every breeze carries an echo. Every place holds a story. Every bloom becomes a relic of a life once shared.
