Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUTUMN, by MIRIAM DEL BANCO


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUTUMN, by                    
First Line: O days, when every flower was fair
Last Line: "through happy, golden summer hours."
Subject(s): Autumn; Seasons; Fall


O days, when every flower was fair,
When every birdling's song was sweet,
Come from the portals of the past
With dainty, silver-sandaled feet!
Come back, and let your sunlight fall
In rosy flocks and golden beams:
O, give us back the happy hours
That only visit us in dreams!

Our flowers lie dead in winter's arms—
Their silent bells no more will chime:
Our hopes and trusts and vain regrets
Lie dead within the arms of Time;
The gloomy sky, in sad, grey drifts,
The misery of earth reveals;
The pallid countenance portrays
The pain and grief the heart conceals.

And as a pale shroud robes the earth
In spotless folds of gleaming white,
And as our shattered dreams of joy
Are slowly buried out of sight,
We ask our hearts: "And is this all
For which the springtide laughed and sang?
Must every bloom of earth and life
Be buried thus, without a pang?"

"Nay," says a struggling sunbeam's smile;
"Nay," says the autumn's magic wand:
"The blossoms of both earth and heart
Are safely held within one Hand;
And when 'tis best for you and me,
A breath divine, breathed on our flowers,
Will waken them to bloom once more
Through happy, golden summer hours."





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