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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WE SEE, WHEN AUTUMN COMES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When autumn comes, we see on the telegraph wires
Last Line: Tries, pauses, and, ere leaving, turns once more.
Subject(s): Autumn; Cold; Seasons; Fall


When autumn comes, we see on the telegraph wires
long lines of swallows shivering.
We can tell that their troubled hearts are cold and wonder why.
Without having seen it, even the new fledgling
yearns for Africa's warm and cloudless sky.

Without ever having seen it! It is just as we
desire heaven in our moments of fright.
They are there, atilt, perched to observe the air;
then off in a sudden, easy, circled flight
back to their starting point to wonder there.

It's hard to leave the portals of the church!
hard it's no longer so warm as in months gone by!
how sad they grow! and why has the nut tree, tall
and strong, deceived them, let its leaves droop and die?
The year's brood doesn't know it at all,
this springtime clad in the cerements of fall.

And the soul that is worn with suffering,
before it crosses the ultimate, holy shore
to gain the heaven of eternal spring
tries, pauses, and, ere leaving, turns once more.





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