A POEM AMORY SENT TO ELEANOR AND WHICH HE CALLED "SUMMER STORM"

by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

      AINT winds, and a song fading and leaves falling,
      Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter . . .
      And the rain and over the fields a voice calling . . .
       
      One gray blown cloud scurries and lifts above,
      Slides on the sun and flutters there to waft her
      Sisters on. The shadow of a dove
      Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings;
      And down the valley through the crying trees
      The body of the darker storm flies; brings
      With its new air the breath of sunken seas
      And slender tenuous thunder . . .
      But I wait . . .
      Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain--
      Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,
      Happier winds that pile her hair;
      Again
      They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air
      Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.
       
      There was a summer every rain was rare;
      There was a season every wind was warm . . .
      And now you pass me in the mist . . . your hair
      Rain-blown about you, damp lips curved once more
      In that wild irony, that gay despair
      That made you old when we have met before;
      Wraith-like you drift on out before the rain,
      Across the fields, blown with the stemless flowers,
      With your old hopes, dead leaves and loves again--
      Dim as a dream and wan with all old hours
      (Whispers will creep into the growing dark . . .
      Tumult will die over the trees)
      Now night
      Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse
      Of day, glides down the dreaming hills, tear-bright,
      To cover with her hair the eerie green . . .
      Love for the dusk . . . Love for the glistening after;
      Quiet the trees to their last tops . . . serene . . .
       
      Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter . . .

"A Poem Amory Sent to Eleanor and Which He Called 'Summer Storm'" is reprinted from This Side of Paradise. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Scribners, 1920.

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