Clothed in splendour, beautifully sad and silent, <br />Comes the autumn over the woods and highlands, <br />Golden, rose-red, full of divine remembrance, <br />Full of foreboding. <br /> <br />Soon the maples, soon will the glowing birches, <br />Stripped of all that summer and love had dowered them, <br />Dream, sad-limbed, beholding their pomp and treasure <br />Ruthlessly scattered: <br /> <br />Yet they quail not: Winter with wind and iron <br />Comes and finds them silent and uncomplaining, <br />Finds them tameless, beautiful still and gracious, <br />Gravely enduring. <br /> <br />Me too changes, bitter and full of evil, <br />Dream by dream have plundered and left me naked, <br />Grey with sorrow. Even the days before me <br />Fade into twilight, <br /> <br />Mute and barren. Yet will I keep my spirit <br />Clear and valiant, brother to these my noble <br />Elms and maples, utterly grave and fearless, <br />Grandly ungrieving. <br /> <br />Brief the span is, counting the years of mortals, <br />Strange and sad; it passes, and then the bright earth, <br />Careless mother, gleaming with gold and azure, <br />Lovely with blossoms-- <br /> <br />Shining white anemones, mixed with roses, <br />Daisies mild-eyed, grasses and honeyed clover-- <br />You, and me, and all of us, met and equal, <br />Softly shall cover.<br /><br />Archibald Lampman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sapphics/
