EDWARD Thomas engages with a traditional manifestation of British summer weather.

The dripping orchard with its crop of cow's parsley is the backdrop to his own thoughts of an intimate moment which cannot be recovered.

IT RAINS

It rains, and nothing stirs within the fence

Anywhere through the orchard's untrodden, dense

Forest of parsley. The great diamonds

Of rain on the grassblades there is none to break,

Or the fallen petals further down to shake.

And I am nearly as happy as possible

To search the wilderness in vain though well,

To think of two walking, kissing there,

Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain:

Sad, too, to think that never, never again,

Unless alone, so happy shall I walk

In the rain. When I turn away, on its fine stalk

Twilight has fined to naught, the parsley flower

Figures, suspended still and ghostly white,

The past hovering as it revisits the light.