When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,And feathered pampas-grass rides into the windLike aged warriors westward, tragic, thinnedOf half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,--Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushesMy heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,And will be born again,--but ah, to seeBeauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!Oh, Autumn! Autumn!--What is the Spring to me?
The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,And the YearOn the earth 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 bierOf 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 knellingFor the Year;The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each goneTo his dwelling;
I could snatch a day out of the late autumnAnd set it trembling like forgotten springs,There would be sharp blue skies with new leaves shiningAnd flying shadows cast by flying wings.I could take the heavy wheel of the world and break it,But we sit brooding while the ashes fall,Cowering over an old fire that dwindles,Waiting for nothing at all.