SOFT voices of the woods, that make <br />The summer air a harmony, <br />Winged whispers through the leaves where wake <br />Long wind-wafts dying in a sigh, <br />Replies of birds from brake to brake, <br />Plash of the runnel on its stones, <br />Soft voices, sweet for summer's sake, <br />There is a word in all your tones, <br />A word that not till now ye spake, <br />'Goodbye, goodbye.' <br /> <br />And yet, see, dearest, overhead <br />The branches bar a sultry sky, <br />No earliest fleck of tanned or red <br />'Mid all the leafage far and nigh, <br />And, with their serried curves outspread, <br />The fresh green fern-fronds know no frost. <br />Nought gone; but still some grace is dead: <br />Nought changed; but still some hope is lost: <br />Listen, and every voice has said <br />'Goodbye, goodbye.' <br /> <br />We shall not see the summer wane, <br />But, with a start of memory, <br />When the long chills have come again, <br />Awake and know that it did die: <br />So slowest loss is sudden pain; <br />We have not known till all is o'er; <br />'Tis summer till the autumn's rain. <br />Yet has there stolen long before <br />That sadness through some sweetest strain <br />'Goodbye, goodbye.' <br /> <br />Ah, love, hear all the thought that grew; <br />Mock it away; I'll mock it, I: <br />Summer, and I sit here with you, <br />Your great eyes smiling tenderly, <br />Your silence wooing me to woo, <br />A meaning in your lightest word <br />As though love made it something new— <br />And what if all the while I heard <br />The autumn whisper sighing through <br />'Goodbye, goodbye'?<br /><br />Augusta Davies Webster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/autumn-s-warnings/
