The Junes were free and full, driving through
Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley,
Through fields of mustard and under boldly
Mays and
Or between beeches verdurous and
Or where broom and gorse beflagged the chalkland—All the flare and gusto of the
Joys of a
Now returned but I note as more
To the maturer mood impending
With an indigo sky and the garden hushed except
The treetops moving.
Then the curtains in my room blow suddenly inward,
The shrubbery rustles, birds fly heavily homeward,
The white flowers fade to nothing on the trees and rain
Down like a dropscene.
Now there comes catharsis, the cleansing
Breaking the blossoms of our overdated
Our old sentimentality and
Loves of the morning.
Blackness at half-past eight, the night's precursor,
Clouds like falling masonry and lightning's
Annunciation, the sword of the mad
Flashed from the scabbard.
If only you would come and dare the
Rampart of the rain and the bottomless moat of thunder,
If only now you would come I should be
Now if now only.
