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In Autumn

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For other versions of this work, see In Autumn.

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IN AUTUMN

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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 dead 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.