My mother, who hates thunder storms,
holds up each summer day and shakes
it out suspiciously, lest swarms
of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
but when the August weather breaks
and rains begin, and brittle frost
sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
her worried summer look is lost,

and I her son, though summer-born
and summer-loving, none the less
am easier when the leaves are gone.
Too often summer days appear
emblems of perfect happiness
I can’t confront: I must await
a time less bold, less rich, less clear:
an autumn more appropriate.

Philip Larkin, “Mother, Summer, I”