the Summer's promise in your eyes

The picture here is the front cover of a hard-back (1950) edition of Philip Freund's 'Private Speech' poetry collection ...

... here's an appropriately entitled verse, from within:


October

How warm, these first October days,
How sweet!
And you! the aster does not curl more gracefully
Nor cool,
That catches to its heart the sunset's hue.
These evenings have the brittleness of blue,
Or Autumn-crumpled leaves
That spread a thousand colors at our feet.

But have you sensed the thin grey edge of chill
That pierces night?
So it is, now asters are most bright
And nights grown still.
Three days are long. And these three days I walked
In Autumn woods, to think that were you there,
How I might kneel beside you on the ground
And see your hair
Shine black against the Autumn leaves around!
Extravagant the splendors of the tree
That lifts its burnished branches pleadingly
At Autumn's cold blue skies ---
But more than these the thoughts I had of you
Then, when I knew
That you would come,
Your offered hands more full,
Your gaze more sure,
And still the Summer's promise in your eyes!

---

Philip Freund (1909 - 2007)

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