That fine and careless rapture



It was as if the sunlight
            felt a yearning for the summer
and all its frivolity
            so that the rays fell
                         with a melancholy slant
as if recalling
                         that fine and careless rapture
of early June
                         the butterflies of July,
the cosmos and the goldfinches,
            the sparrows and the pink lilies,
                                     the amusing bee balm,
                         the strawberry hollyhocks,
it was as if it felt
            and yearned with us
                         for the summer to last
and felt sad too
            at the awful evanescence
                         at the wistful and inexorable
dance of Time