Hot

These are not the dog days – they come in August when the dog star, Sirius, is rising – but, by heaven, they feel like it. It's proper hot, as we say around here, and more to come tomorrow. At least the butterflies are loving it – to the extent that a Silver-Washed Fritillary paid a fleeting visit to the garden the other day: they sometimes do this, flying far from their usual haunts, when the weather gets really hot. But talk of dog days inevitably leads me to this, one of Auden's best – so good it even impressed Randall Jarrell...Under SiriusYes, these are the dog days, Fortunatus:The heather lies limp and deadOn the mountain, the baltering torrentShrunk to a soodling thread;Rusty the spears of the legion, unshaven its captain,Vacant the scholar’s brainUnder his great hat,Drug though She may, the Sybil uttersA gush of table-chat.And you yourself with a head-cold and upset stomach,Lying in bed till noon,Your bills unpaid, your much advertisedEpic not yet begun,Are a sufferer too. All…