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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


KING ERIK: SONG (1) by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE

First Line: AUTUMN CLOSES ROUND THE ROSES
Last Line: TO THESE STRICKEN LIPS THAT SING.

AUTUMN closes
Round the roses,
Shatters, strips them, head by head;
Winter passes
O'er the grasses,
Turns them yellow, brown and red;
Can a lover
E'er recover
When his summer love is dead?

Yet the swallow
Turns to follow
In the northward wake of spring,
To refashion
Wasted passion
With a sweep of his dark wing,
As returning
Love flies burning
To these stricken lips that sing.



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