There is strange music in the stirring wind, <br />When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone <br />To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone, <br />Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined <br />Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere. <br />If in such shades, beneath their murmuring, <br />Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring, <br />With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year; <br />Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn <br />Or evening thou hast shared, afar shall stray. <br />O Spring, return! return, auspicious May! <br />But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn, <br />If she return not with thy cheering ray, <br />Who from these shades is gone, far, far away.<br /><br />William Lisle Bowles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/absence-65/
