Interminable palaces front on the green parterres And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral Glide down the gilded stairs; The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel-taps That long ago were theirs. But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine The geometric gardens are desolately gay; The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis, On a lost October day. The aisles of the garden lead into the forest, The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves; Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover, But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves, Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves. |