A Reed by the River/Autumn Song

by Virginia Woodward Cloud

AUTUMN SONG

Wrap us round, O mother Autumn, with a silence all unbroken,With the royal purple semblance of a passion all unspoken,While the bird of life wings backward, with the reddening, waning day,To a thrill of long-lost laughter, to a love that could not stay!

Now the spirits of all lost things, softly, silently have found us,Stealing through the gold and grayness, through the prisoned flame around us,And the weary heart within us wakens fearfully again,To the old, exquisite measure, to the long-forgotten pain.

Now the savage child within us leaps the thicket, flying faster,Barefoot through the voiceless forest, threading fern and leaf and aster,Leaping brook and laughing upward, where the broken blue beguiles,Speeding on,—O heart, fly faster—down the light of memory's aisles!

Now the scent of grape and hollow stirs the sense and fans the ember,And wind above the waiting sheaves is whispering "Remember!"O now, the heart of memory's rose burns reddest 'gainst the gray,And the bird of life wings backward to the love that could not stay!