Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain / Delmore Schwartz

Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain

1

A tattering of rain and then the reign
Of pour and pouring-down and down,
Where in the westward gathered the filming gown
Of grey and clouding weakness, and, in the mane
Of the light’s glory and the day’s splendor, gold and vain,
Vivid, more and more vivid, scarlet, lucid and more luminous,
Then came a splatter, a prattle, a blowing rain!
And soon the hour was musical and rumorous:
A softness of a dripping lipped the isolated houses,
A gaunt grey somber softness licked the glass of hours.

2

Again, after a catbird squeaked in the special silence,
And clouding vagueness fogged the windowpane
And gathered blackness and overcast, the mane
Of light’s story and light’s glory surrendered and ended
— A pebble — a ring — a ringing on the pane,
A blowing and a blowing in: tides of the blue and cold
Moods of the great blue bay, and slates of grey
Came down upon the land’s great sea, the body of this day
— Hardly an atom of silence amid the roar
Allowed the voice to form appeal — to call:
By kindled light we thought we saw the bronze of fall.

~~
Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
from Summer Knowledge: New and selected poems, 1959

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Delmore Schwartz biography

"Darkling Summer" read by Delmore Schwartz. Courtesy The French Gal Chronicles.