The Passing of Autumn

I

Slow trembles from her envied crown

A red leaf down;

And the smile dies

Into the darkness of her eyes.

II

The hurt hours droop and hover,

Passing the hallowed place;

The pale moon leans above her,

Weeps down upon her face.

III

The swamp-tree sighs, and the thin sharp reed,

The wire-grass whines, and the stiff brown weed,

The lone hill-mullein stands dumb and tall,

The low clouds hover, the long rains fall.

IV

The brook, slow northward toward the snows,

Bubbling its little trouble, goes;

Lorn branches beckon, strained in space;

Death-pale the field's beseeching face.

V

A wind, whence no man knows,

Through the grating weeds it blows;

It comes, it sighs and goes.

Once it rocked the summer rose.