The long cloud edged with streaming grey <br />Soars from the West; <br />The red leaf mounts with it away, <br />Showing the nest <br />A blot among the branches bare: <br />There is a cry of outcasts in the air. <br /> <br />Swift little breezes, darting chill, <br />Pant down the lake; <br />A crow flies from the yellow hill, <br />And in its wake <br />A baffled line of labouring rooks: <br />Steel-surfaced to the light the river looks. <br /> <br />Pale on the panes of the old hall <br />Gleams the lone space <br />Between the sunset and the squall; <br />And on its face <br />Mournfully glimmers to the last: <br />Great oaks grow mighty minstrels in the blast. <br /> <br />Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine <br />In the green light <br />Behind the cedar and the pine: <br />Come, thundering night! <br />Blacken broad earth with hoards of storm: <br />For me yon valley-cottage beckons warm.<br /><br />George Meredith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/autumn-even-song/
