Soft-footed as a mother when her child’s asleep <br />So gentle autumn tiptoes in unseen <br />To take the summer’s place. We are surprised <br />Each year to find the nights now cool, the evenings <br />Shorter. Yet signs there are for all to see: <br />The morning mists, the spiders’ webs that hang <br />Their looping ropes of pearls to shake and tremble <br />In the silver light, the bright and golden fields <br />Of summer corn replaced by shining stubble, <br />And all too soon the plough and fresh-turned clay, <br />Along the hedges hips and haws gleam red <br />While purple elder fruits droop down in bunches, <br />A feast of welcome for the winter thrushes. <br />Now in the fields the birds begin to flock— <br />Rich golden plovers, lapwings, gulls—while rooks <br />Take to the sky in clouds like scattered leaves <br />That soon the equinoctual gales will tear <br />From twig and branch to dance along the lanes, <br />And over the plains and rolling hills of England, <br />Then when the days begin to fade, far off <br />We hear the heavy tread of dread November <br />And smell the smoke of smouldering leaves, and him, <br />The guy we burn each year in sacrifice <br />To grim King Winter, waiting in the wings.<br /><br />Pete Crowther<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-after-autumn-winter-comes/
