When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, <br />And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind <br />Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned <br />Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, <br />Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, <br />Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,— <br />Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes <br />My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die, <br />And will be born again,—but ah, to see <br />Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky! <br />Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?<br /><br />Edna St. Vincent Millay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-death-of-autumn/
