Saturday, July 16, 2016

A Rainy Summer / Violet Fane


A Rainy Summer

This year we had no time for commune sweet,
    With spires of snowy chestnut overhead;
I lying, with the bluebells, at your feet,
    As from an old-world book, mayhap, I read
        Some tale of knightly prowess for fair dame;
For scarcely had I smoothed the pages, — so, —
    And looked for inspiration in your eyes,
And sighed, and sought your little hand, when, lo,
Wildly the winds of heaven began to blow,
    And all alarmed and fluttering you fled,
With waving of white garments to and fro,
    Whilst from the jealous unrelenting skies
        Th' inevitable July downpour came,
Nor left me time to say what I had said.

~~
Violet Fane (1843-1905)
from Collected Verses, 1880

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

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