Charles Ives' song August is part of a subset of three songs he entitled From Early Italian Poets. A few years before compiling 114 Songs Ives had written a choral song with small orchestra called December (Ky 32 in John Kirkpatrick's catalog of Ives' works). He recomposed it as a solo song around 1919 or 1920 for inclusion in the song book. It was apparently at that time that he decided to return to the source of the texts in search of lyrics for more songs, eventually adding this song and another (September, Kz 36) and grouping the three as one set, which he called From Early Italian Poets.

In fact there was only one early Italian poet involved, Folgore da San Geminiano (ca. 1250 - 1317). This poet published a set of 14 sonnets called Mesi (Months), with a poem for each month of the year, plus a opening and closing poems. This publication is considered an interesting commentary and source of information about the attitudes and everyday life of the upper class in his area of Italy at the time.

Ives' texts are English translations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as published in 1893 in that poet's book Dante and his Circle. The three songs are in an advanced musical language for the time, though not nearly as radical as Ives was capable of and is written in unmeasured notation throughout.

August pictures a genteel retreat into a tower in Alpine country, where one escapes the heat and humidity of coastal Italy. There, every day one might go riding and enjoy the mountain vistas while fresh mountain streams offer fresh, wholesome water instead of the stagnant water of lowland Italian rivers during the dry season. The tempo is marked "con grazia" (with gracefulness) and flows gently, though the tonality wanders through unusual chord formations while the flowing vocal line tends to remain generally diatonic and grateful.

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