A June Day / Philip Bourke Marston

A June Day

The month is June, but all the sky is grey,
    And to the weary earth seems leaning low;
    There is no little breath of wind to blow
The searching perfume of these flowers away
Which climbing round the window peer and stay;
    The thrush sings, where the branches thickly grow;
    The day moves by, with heavy feet and slow;
"Death endeth all," the stillness seems to say.

But Love shall come before Death's nuptial hour;
    There sits my queen and silent, pondering what?
Sees she, as I, Love's joy-environed bower,
    Where sweet conspiring things one sweeter plot,
Or does she hear, 'neath some grave's guardian flower,
    Sad sighing of dead loves remembered not?

~~
Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)
from Wind-voices, 1883

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Philip Bourke Marston biography

Keith Evans, Grey Skies, June 2011. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.