Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MENACE OF AUTUMN by WILLIAM SHARP

First Line: AMBER AND YELLOW AND RUSSET, GOLD AND RED
Last Line: AND WOLD AND WOODLAND LIE, AUSTERE AND BARE.
Subject(s): AUTUMN; FLOWERS; SEASONS; SINGING & SINGERS; FALL;
Amber and yellow and russet, gold and red,
The autumnal leaves dream they are summer flowers:
Day after day the windless sunny hours
With feet of flame pass softly overhead:

Day after day over each perishing leaf
The windless hours pass with slow-fading flame:
No song is heard where floods of music came;
Long garner'd on the fields the final sheaf.

One day a wild and ravishing wind will rise,
One day a paralysing frost will come,
And all this glory be taken unaware:
Dark branches then will lean against the skies,
Sear leaves will drift the forest-pathways dumb,
And wold and woodland lie, austere and bare.



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