Autumn
So still—so still! Only the endless sighing
Of sad Æolian harp-notes overhead;
Only the soft mass-music for the dying;
Only the requiem for the newly dead!
So strangely dim!—the grey mist on the heather,
The chill cloud-twilight in the wind-stripped bowers,
Where gold and scarlet sunlights lay together
On harvest fruit and summer wealth of flowers.
So empty now!—only the dead leaves sifting
The dead brown berries underneath the trees;
Only my fair dead treasures idly drifting
About my footsteps in the autumn breeze.
All over now! No flowers that must be tended
Are left to grow upon the open plain;
No fruits to ripen; for the harvest's ended—
There's no more need for either sun or rain.
The infinite hope, the boundless, strong endeavour,
The love and joy I never thought to sum,
The precious things that were to last for ever—
All gather'd now, and nothing more to come!
Only the shroud of snow, the white star-tapers,
The passionate storm-winds, wailing in the air;
Only the icy rain and tearful vapours,
Only the winter darkness of despair!
* * * * *
So still, so sweet! with tender breezes blowing
Amongst the hills and o'er the Lowland sod,
And golden drifts of dead leaves softly strowing
The seed-graves hollow'd by the hands of God.
So grey and calm! the crimson glory faded
From this low sky, pale blue and purple-barred—
This placid sea, with steel and silver shaded—
This fair earth, now with autumn furrows scarred.
In the decay such chasten'd beauty blending—
Beauty late-born of peace, and hope, and rest,
As in a saintly life when near the ending,
When all its strife and labour has been blest.
The harvest-time is past. But there remaineth
The well-stored treasure-house—the hidden seed
That dead leaves help to nourish, which containeth
The germ of a new life that's life indeed.
poem by Ada Cambridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Golden Rain
Summer gleams in heated rays,
across the shimmering plain.
Awaiting autumn's cooling breeze,
when leaves fall ~ like golden rain.
Rows and rows of harvest lay,
a bounty's sweet repose.
Fate sealed by the reaper's hand,
when the wind of autumn blows.
Shaded with a timeless hue,
day sings sweet summer's refrain.
Awaiting autumn's cooling breeze,
when leaves fall ~ like golden rain.
Fiery flame of sun ~ now set
upon fields of summery bliss,
below horizons pinkly lit ~
by summer's parting kiss.
How fair those days of summer now.
Its warmth will not remain.
How soon the autumn ~ will take its place,
when leaves fall ~ like golden rain.
poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: LXXXV
THE SAME CONTINUED
These flowers shall be my offering, living flowers
Which here shall die with you in sacrifice,
Flowers from the empty fields which once were yours
And now are mine. No gold, nor myrrh, nor spice,
Nor any dead man's offering may suffice.
I love not flowers: but thus to deck a grave
Which has no need of things of greater price.
Life is the only tribute death would have.
--Ah, thou art dead. Mine is this fair domain
With all its living beauty and brave shows
Of lawn, and lake, and garden; mine the increase
Of the year's harvest, the slow growth of trees,
And that fair natural wealth we loved in vain,
Flowers, which shall never more adorn my house.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Garden of Prosperine
Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Autumn
The leaves are many under my feet,
And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.
The low winds moan for sad sweet years;
The birds sing all for pain,
Of a common thing, to weary ears,--
Only a summer's fate of rain,
And a woman's fate of tears.
I walk to love and life alone
Over these mournful places,
Across the summer overthrown,
The dead joys of these silent faces,
To claim my own.
I know his heart has beat to bright
Sweet loves gone by;
I know the leaves that die to-night
Once budded to the sky;
And I shall die from his delight.
O leaves, so quietly ending now,
You heard the cuckoos sing.
And I will grow upon my bough
If only for a spring,
And fall when the rain is on my brow.
O tell me, tell me ere you die,
Is it worth the pain?
You bloomed so fair, you waved so high;
Now that the sad days wane,
Are you repenting where you lie?
I lie amongst you, and I kiss
Your fragrance mouldering.
O dead delights, is it such bliss,
That tuneful Spring?
Is love so sweet, that comes to this?
Kiss me again as I kiss you;
Kiss me again;
For all your tuneful nights of dew,
In this your time of rain,
For all your kisses when Spring was new.
You will not, broken hearts; let be.
I pass across your death
To a golden summer you shall not see,
And in your dying breath
There is no benison for me.
There is an autumn yet to wane,
There are leaves yet to fall,
Which, when I kiss, may kiss again,
And, pitied, pity me all for all,
And love me in mist and rain.
poem by Alice Meynell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hopes
A PRINCESS, sleeping in enchanted bowers,
Earth springs to waking at Spring's voice and kiss,
And after winter's cold, unlovely hours,
Laughs out to find how beautiful she is.
Spring flings a song across the field and fold,
And sighs it through the glad wood's tangled ways;
And million, million tales of love are told,
And dreams are dreamed of undivided days.
In hollows where so late but dead leaves lay,
Through the dead leaves the primroses push up;
And wind-flowers fleck the copse, and fields are gay
With daisies and the budding buttercup.
So in our hearts, though thick the dead leaves lie
Of grief--heaped up by winds of old despair--
May there not be a spring-time by-and-by,
When flowers of joy shall blossom even there?
So long has Winter held our hearts in his,
We dare not dream of Spring and all her flowers?
Ah! the undreamed-of happiness it is
That comes--the dreamed-of joy is never ours!
When late the trees were brown and hedges bare,
And keen east wind cut sharp as human pain,
Did the Earth guess how soon she would be fair
With Spring's dear dainty loveliness again?
We do not guess of joy, but hope alone--
Like life's mysterious force that thrills the earth--
Lives in our souls, unrecognised, unknown,
Till time shall bring unhoped-for joy to birth.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hendecasyllabics
In the month of the long decline of roses
I, beholding the summer dead before me,
Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,
Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark
Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions
Half divided the eyelids of the sunset;
Till I heard as it were a noise of waters
Moving tremulous under feet of angels
Multitudinous, out of all the heavens;
Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage,
Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow;
And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels,
Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight,
Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel,
Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not,
Winds not born in the north nor any quarter,
Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine;
Heard between them a voice of exultation,
'Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,
Even like as a leaf the year is withered,
All the fruits of the day from all her branches
Gathered, neither is any left to gather.
All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms,
All are taken away; the season wasted,
Like an ember among the fallen ashes.
Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight,
Light of snow, and the bitter light of hoarfrost,
We bring flowers that fade not after autumn,
Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons,
Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser),
Woven under the eyes of stars and planets
When low light was upon the windy reaches
Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily
Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows
And green fields of the sea that make no pasture:
Since the winter begins, the weeping winter,
All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples
Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever.'
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Death of the Flowers
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchids died amid the summer glow;
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
To the Autumn
Sweet Sabbath of the year!
While evening lights decay,
Thy parting steps methinks I hear
Steal from the world away.
Amid thy silent bowers,
'Tis sad, but sweet, to dwell;
Where falling leaves and drooping flowers
Around me breathe farewell.
Along thy sunset skies
Their glories melt in shade,
And like the things we fondly prize,
Seem lovelier as they fade.
A deep and crimson streak
Thy dying leaves disclose;
As on consumption's waning cheek
'Mid ruin blooms the rose.
Thy scene each vision brings
Of beauty in decay;
Of fair and early faded things
Too exquisite to stay.
Of joys that come no more;
Of flowers whose bloom is fled;
Of farewells wept upon the shore;
Of friends estranged or dead.
Of all that now may seem
To memory's tearful eye,
The vanish'd beauty of a dream,
O'er which we gaze and sigh!
poem by James Montgomery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Bohemian Folk-Song
(From the French)
The moon was in the sky,
Pale, pale her light had grown
I went into the forest
All alone.
All alone,
My heart was well-nigh glad,
But when I thought of thee
Grief came and made me sad.
It came with the winds of autumn
When the dead leaves drop from the tree,
Because thy heart hath forgotten
Thy lover afar from thee.
It came with the rain fast falling
Through the dead leaves again,
Because that over a dead love
The heart must weep like rain.
poem by Arthur Symons
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All Dead, All Dead
Memories, my memories
How long can you stay
To haunt my days
She came without a farthing
A babe without a name
So much ado about nothing
Is what shed try to say
So much ado my lover
So many games we played
Through every fleeted summer
Through every precious day
All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead all dead
And alone Im spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead
And gone
All dead...
All dead all dead
At the rainbows end
And still I hear her own sweet song
All dead all dead
Take me back again
You know my little friends
All dead
And gone
All dead and gone
Her ways are always with me
I wander all the while
But please you must forgive me
I am old but still a child
All dead all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to everyone
All dead all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I dont believe
Youre dead
And gone
All dead
And gone
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Autumn My Dear
I
Autumn my dear!
Thy winds are cool and sharp
And are mine to embrace
Even as I draw you near
I sniff the traditional odour
Of dead leaves and lavender...
Oh, how they have haunted me
Since late December;
That I wished it early October
II
Autumn my dear!
Orange by they favourite colour
To alleviate the people's fear
Of dying Summer,
Idyllic paradise,
That you have replaced
To my heart sprung joy
My Autumn, ever dearest,
I have waited ever long
III
Autumn my dear!
The harvest has been reaped,
And the leaves have long been scattered
From the trees your winds have shattered
The trees have since weeped,
As you drew near.
poem by Ryan C. Walker
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Corn Song
HEAP HIGH the farmer’s wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;
We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.
Through vales of grass and meads of flowers
Our ploughs their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
We dropped the seed o’er hill and plain
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer’s noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now, with autumn’s moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
There, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.
Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!
Where’er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth
And bless our farmer girls?
Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard’s fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly:
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for His golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
George Edmunds' Song
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around he here;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
How like the hopes of childhood's day,
Thick clust'ring on the bough!
How like those hopes in their decay-
How faded are they now!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
Wither'd leaves, wither'd leaves, that fly before the gale:
Withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale,
Of love once true, and friends once kind,
And happy moments fled:
Dispersed by every breath of wind,
Forgotten, changed, or dead!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
poem by Charles Dickens
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Threnos
IN o more for us the little sighing.
No more the winds at twilight trouble us.
Lo the fair dead!
No more do I burn.
No more for us the fluttering of wings
That whirred in the air above us.
Lo the fair dead!
No more desire flayeth me,
No more for us the trembling
At the meeting of hands.
Lo the fair dead!
No more for us the wine of the lips,
No more for us the knowledge.
Lo the fair dead!
No more the torrent,
No more for us the meeting-place
(Lo the fair dead!)
Tintagoel.
poem by Ezra Pound
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Grey
Is the morning dim and cloudy? Does the wind drift up the leaves?
Is there mist upon the mountains, where the sun shone yesterday?
Are the little song-birds silent? Is the sky all blurred and grey?
Does the rain fall, patter, patter, from the eaves?
Does your glass go down? And does your heart sink in the dreary lull?
Are the strings relax'd and limp, and do the soft notes whine and cry?
Has the damp got in and jarred the chords and spoil'd the melody?
Are you out of tune, belovèd? are you dull?
Has the chill wind found an entrance? Does it sigh and rustle there?
Is it drifting, not the dead leaves, but your dead hopes, all about?
Is it waking up your sorrow while your light is blotted out?
Does your heart seem sad and cold and full of care?
Are you listless and discouraged, dear? and does your life look grey?
Does there seem no use in trying? Does your work fall from your hand?
Would you give up the great riddle that's so hard to understand?
Oh, then, go you to your chamber straight, and pray.
Go and pray, and God will give you peace and comfort for your pain—
All the misty, dull confusion He will tenderly reform—
And the fire of His own Spirit, that shall make you dry and warm;
And your harp-strings shall be strung and tuned again.
Ay, the Lord will put the melody in your heart and soul anew;
So that, howsoe'er unskilled and rude the hands that touch the wires,
There shall come forth beautiful chords of faith and hope and high desires,
Only music that is deep and sweet and true.
Go and work,—the clouds will show the silver lining that's behind.
Go to squalid lanes and alleys, where grim want and sickness lurk;
Feed the hungry, soothe the suffering, tell the poor of Christ,—oh, work,
And you'll no more hear the rustling of the wind.
Then you'll no more hear the restless, hopeless sobbing over sin,
No more hear the earthly troubles crying, crying from the ground;
For the wings of guardian angels, they shall compass you around,
That the wind shall have no place to enter in.
Then, as wither'd leaves lie browning on the quiet grassy slopes,
As they sink in peaceful earth, and moulder with it as they die,
To help nurture precious seeds for coming summers— so shall lie,
Calm and still, your sorrowful memories and dead hopes.
O belovèd, work and wait! The sun will shine another day,
On a heart refresh'd, and strong, and green, and cool. The rain and gloom
Are to make the sap run quicker, give the flowers a deeper bloom—
We have need for both the golden and the grey.
poem by Ada Cambridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
New For Old
Bud blisters into life
Stretching for the light
Unfolding radiant green
Upturned palm to the sun
Life seeping in, breathing out
Green, Green so Green
Resurrected hope, so Green
Summer breeze stroking
Branches ebb and flow
Leaves so Green strong now
Fear not wind of change
Mellow summer turns
Green, green, green-yellow
Yellow area of dieing heart
Green lingers no more
Limp transparent yellow
Barely a breeze takes one
Fierce Hyde-like wind now
Cracking and ripping
Wind torn leaves fall
Life chords snapped
Death too early, still Green
Nourishment broken not ended
Seasons build up to tear down
To build up, to tear down
Leaves fall, Green leaves fall
And then some more
Until leaves are falling, falling
Trees and branches revealed
In the x-ray of autumn blast
Winter is coming
Winter is coming
Yellow pale yellow carpet
Beneath the naked tree
Yellow, mulchy brown
Once crisp leaves scatter
Green, yellow, transparent veins
Tired, half dead, leaves lose their grip
Join the autumn rain soaked mound
Providing new life to the roots
Old for new, New for Old
Seeds buried in death
Bring new life in Spring
In the end is the beginning.
poem by Adrian Wait
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Autumn: A Dirge
The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the Year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling.
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black and gray;
Let your light sisters play--
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Autumn Is Brown!
The colour of Autumn is brown
Like the leaves of Spring are crown!
The colour of Winter is white
Like the Summer heat at its height!
Falling dry leaves are symbol of Autumn
After flowers of Spring with bees hum!
Autumn is the symbol of wisdom ever
After rich growth of fruits in Spring sure!
Rain in Autumn is joyful as in heaven
Just as for the birds trees are haven!
Autumn ever denotes mental maturity
Just as fully grown flowers of beauty!
poem by Ramesh T A
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead Leaves
When these dead leaves were green, love,
November's skies were blue,
And summer came with lips aflame,
The gentle spring to woo;
And to us, wandering hand in hand,
Life was a fairy scene,
That golden morning in the woods
When these dead leaves were green!
How dream-like now that dewy morn,
Sweet with the wattle's flowers,
When love, love, love was all our theme,
And youth and hope were ours!
Two happier hearts in all the land
There were not then, I ween,
Than those young lovers' -- yours and mine --
When these dead leaves were green.
How gaily did you pluck these leaves
From the acacia's bough,
To mark the lyric we had read --
I can repeat it now!
While came the words, like music sweet,
Your smiling lips between --
"So fold my love within your heart,"
When these dead leaves were green!
How many springs have passed since then?
Ah, wherefore should we count,
The years that sped, like waters fled
From Time's unstaying fount?
We've had our share of happiness,
Our share of care have seen;
But love alone has never flown
Since these dead leaves were green.
Your heart is kind and loving still,
Your face to me as fair,
As when, that morn, the sunshine played
Amid your golden hair.
So, dearest, sweethearts still we'll be,
As we have ever been,
And keep our love as fresh and true
As when these leaves were green.
poem by Edward Booth Loughran
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Vae Victis!
Here in this isle
The summer still lingers,
And Autumn's brown fingers
So busy the while
With the leaves in the north;
Are scarcely put forth
In this land where the sun still glows like an ember,.
In mid-November.
In England it's cold,
And the yellow and red
Of October have fled ;
And the sun is wet gold
Like an emperor weeping,
When Death goes a-reaping
All through his empire, merciless comer
The dead things of summer.
The sky has cried so
That the earth is all sodden,
With dead leaves in-trodden,
And the trees to and fro
Wave their arms in the air
In despair, in despair :
They are thinking of all the hot days that are over,
And the cows in the clover.
Here the roses are out,
And the sun at high noon
Makes the birds faint and swoon.
But the cricket's about
With his song, and the hum
Of the bees as they come
To feast at the honey-board laden and groaning,
Makes musical droning.
But vainly, alas !
Do I hide in the south,
Kiss close with my mouth
Red flowers, green grass,
For Autumn has found me
And thrown her arms around me.
She has breathed on my lips and I wander apart,
Dead leaves in my heart.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!