THE stillness that doth wait on change is here, Some pause of expectation owns the hour; And faint and far I hear the sea complain Where gray and answerless the headlands tower. Slow fails the evening of the dying year, Misty and dim the waiting forests lie, Chill ocean winds the wasted woodland grieve, And earthward loitering the leaves go by. Behold how nature answers death! O'erhead The memoried splendor of her summer eves Lavished and lost, her wealth of sun and sky, Scarlet and gold, are in her drifting leaves. Vain pageantry! for this, alas, is death, Nor may the seasons' ripe fulfilment cheat My thronging memories of those who died With life's young summer promise incomplete. The dead leaves rustle 'neath my lingering tread. Low murmuring ever to the spirit ear: We were, and yet again shall be once more, In the sure circuits of the rolling year. Trust thou the craft of nature. Lo! for thee A comrade wise she moves, serenely sweet, With wilful prescience mocking sense of loss For us who mourn love's unreturning feet. Trust thou her wisdom, she will reconcile The faltering spirit to eternal change When, in her fading woodways, thou shalt touch Dear hands long dead and know them not as strange. For thee a golden parable she breathes Where in the mystery of this repose, While death is dreaming life, the waning wood With far-caught light of heaven divinely glows. Thou, when the final loneliness draws near, And earth to earth recalls her tired child, In the sweet constancy of nature strong Shalt dream again—how dying nature smiled. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SIXTEEN MONTHS by CARL SANDBURG INGRATEFUL [OR UNGRATEFUL] BEAUTY THREATENED by THOMAS CAREW THE FIRST GRAY HAIR by THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY ROSA MUNDI by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THAT'S HER PRIVILEGE by BERTON BRALEY THE NIGHT JOURNEY by RUPERT BROOKE A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 14 by THOMAS CAMPION FOUR SONGS BY WAY OF CHORUS TO A PLAY: 3. SEPARATION OF LOVERS by THOMAS CAREW |