Too quick despairer

Spiny Restharrow. Swindon, 21 June 2020.

So, some tempestuous morn in early June,
   When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er,
      Before the roses and the longest day --
   When garden-walks and all the grassy floor
      With blossoms red and white of fallen May
         And chestnut-flowers are strewn --
   So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry,
      From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees,
      Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze :
   The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I !

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ?
   Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
      Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
   Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
      Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell,
         And stocks in fragrant blow ;
   Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
      And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
      And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
   And the full moon, and the white evening-star.


(Matthew Arnold, from "Thyrsis", written in 1865)

Scarlet Tiger on Wisteria. Frome, 14 June 2020.