Autumn Leaves
Now in this autumn of repose
When Nature draws her breath
Afore the fall of winter’s leaden weight,
And the shadow of the Friend hangs close,
When furtive breezes stir the papers on my desk
And the ivy at my open casement licks,
It is my pleasure to step abroad
Amid the richly tinted world
Of golden lights and blushes deep,
And fall amidst
The cornflake crispness of yellow leaves,
Curled conch-like,
Chrysalid graveyard racked by autumn’s freshsome gusts
That swoop like carrion among the hollows
To waltz and whirl the scabrous skins
Of new-shed trees, mournful marionettes
That jig and jerk on withered wire,
Or tremble with the fretful flutter
Of a broken wing.
Even now, my love, the ivy flames,
Like into the blood-red flares that streak the sky
At eventide,
When birds wing silent to southern lands
And clip the edge of night,
And the cries of children echo far away
In the ringing silence of the ashen dusk.
’Rapt in my ‘loneness,
I tread the wanderer’s unended quest
Through russet realms,
Silent witness to the year’s long breathing out,
Footfalls muffled in seas of burnished tears
Wept in expiation of some unspoken deed,
Settling like the dust of time…
A calendar’s crumpled sheets scattered in the wind;
There us forgiveness in the falling of a leaf.
Oh Nature!
With what infernal beauty dust thou grace the ageing year!
What rest the heart, what sweetness breathe
’Pon souls who more clamorous times
Hath known!
And oft I gaze ‘pon silvered hair and faces etched,
And see in them a deeper glow,
Like unto lanterns softly raying the night;
Youth’s sharp angles smoothed away
Like pebbles rolled long upon the bed
Of some swift stream;
Love claims the space desire hath fled
And peace fills up the mansions of the soul.
Then take me, dark angel,
For I have lived
And filled my saddlebags with spices rich.
Now in this time of rain,
With kindly fingers draw close my lids
And clasp me to thy satin robe
That I may quit this shattered bowl
And walk forever in the garden of my rest.
