June Thunder

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.