June Thunder The Junes were free and full, driving through tiny Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley, Through fields of mustard and under boldly embattled Mays and chestnuts Or between beeches verdurous and voluptuous Or where broom and gorse beflagged the chalkland-- All the flare and gusto of the unenduring Joys of a season Now returned but I note as more appropriate To the maturer mood impending thunder With an indigo sky and the garden hushed except for 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 comes Down like a dropscene. Now there comes catharsis, the cleansing downpour Breaking the blossoms of our overdated fancies Our old sentimentality and whimsicality Loves of the morning. Blackness at half-past eight, the night's precursor, Clouds like falling masonry and lightning's lavish Annunciation, the sword of the mad archangel Flashed from the scabbard. If only you would come and dare the crystal Rampart of the rain and the bottomless moat of thunder, If only now you would come I should be happy Now if now only. ~ Louis Macneice