Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare <br />Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves, <br />Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air. <br />Flutter away from the old forest's eaves. <br />Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill, <br />Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed, <br />My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still, <br />By thronging fancies wild and wistful led. <br />Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago <br />The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain! <br />How soon death settles on us, and the snow <br />Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain! <br />Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood <br />Of that which makes moods dear,—some shoot of spring <br />Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood <br />We walked in,—memory's rare environing. <br />And, though they die, the seasons only take <br />A ruined substance. All that's best remains <br />In the essential vision that can make <br />One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.<br /><br />George Parsons Lathrop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-the-snow-3/
