AUTUMN falls quickly on us hereabout; Wreckage of roses strews the garden-ground; Stripped are the orchards of their gleaming fruit; Something of Winter's wan and weary round Tinges the days, and mournful is the sound Of wind and sea, while ever a mist of rain Hangs in the trees and blurs the window-pane. Now, standing in the twilight of the year, Awaiting its oncoming night of death, Into the darkness slowly creeping near Along the road as of a desolate heath We look, and linger ere we pass beneath Its heavy languor of sleepy short-lived days, As tired wayfarers look into the haze Of gloom that gathers for a moonless night, Knowing their haven is a far-off land; Thus lingering, long we for a world more bright, The world of Springtide where on either hand Of every lane the budding hawthorns stand, Waiting to welcome May with bursts of bloom And launch the Summer on seas of deep perfume. There, in the year's high tide, will be no need Of wavering fantasies that seem scarce nought, But in dark days it may be some will heed The things that never were, the things forgot, Which I to soothe my weariness have wrought: If any praise them, let his praise be paid Unto my master who is lying dead. As children in the twilight fashion tales From mighty stories that their elders love (Crouching, half fearful of their own faint spells), So in song-working I have tried to move Within his wake who had great skill thereof, The weaver of melodies both sweet and strong, The eager viking of the ways of song. The rain has slackened slowly, seeming spent; The valley is fulfilled of silences All intertangled and together blent, The silence of dead winds among the trees, The silence where the roof-smoke spires with ease. O silent land, even now one sound is thine -- The evening lowing of tense-uddered kine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SUMMER DAWN by WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896) FULL OF LIFE NOW by WALT WHITMAN STANZAS, OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF A RELATIVE ABROAD by BERNARD BARTON TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE SPRING FANTASIES: 1. MAY DAY IN MARCH by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON SOLILOQUY OF A BARD IN THE COUNTRY by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |