Now at our casement the wind is shrilling, <br />Poignant and keen <br />And all the great boughs of the pines between <br />It is harping a lone and hungering strain <br />To the eldritch weeping of the rain; <br />And then to the wild, wet valley flying <br />It is seeking, sighing, <br />Something lost in the summer olden. <br />When night was silver and day was golden; <br />But out on the shore the waves are moaning <br />With ancient and never fulfilled desire, <br />And the spirits of all the empty spaces, <br />Of all the dark and haunted places, <br />With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces, <br />Come to the lure of our leaping fire. <br /> <br />But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor <br />From our blithe domain, <br />And drown the whimper of wind and rain <br />With undaunted laughter, echoing long, <br />Cheery old tale and gay old song; <br />Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition, <br />Attained ambition. <br />Ours is the treasure of tested loving, <br />Friendship that needs no further proving; <br /> <br />No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain, <br />Here we have largess of summer in fee <br />Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping, <br />At bay the chill of the autumn keeping, <br />While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping <br />In the fairest meadow of memory!<br /><br />Lucy Maud Montgomery<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/by-an-autumn-fire/
