Here let us sit beneath this oak, and hear <br />The acorns fitfully fall one by one, <br />The final harvest of the fading year <br />Now Summer eves and Autumn days are done. <br />The orchard rows stand desolate and bare, <br />Even the mellow quince is gathered now; <br />The furrow yields the sickle to the share, <br />And lonely trunks stretch out the leafless bough. <br />Thus wanes the body ere the mind decays, <br />And through the heart the vernal sap still flows, <br />While warm within, on short-lived winter days, <br />The soul's clear lamp unflickeringly glows. <br />So are we one with Nature, in the round <br />Of seasonable change, knit by some tie profound.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-autumn-homily/
