A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/The Fall of the Leaves (Charles Millevoye)
THE FALL OF THE LEAVES.
The autumn had bestrewed the vale
With withered leaves,—the woods were left
Bare, and of mystery bereft,
And voiceless was the nightingale;
Sad, almost dying in his dawn,
A sick youth wandered slow, in tears,
Once more in places far withdrawn
That he had loved in earlier years.
'Woods that I love, adieu!—Your gloom,
Your mourning, suits me, for I read
In every leaf that falls, my doom!
The hour approaches, and with speed.
Epidaurus' fatal oracle!
With every gust you seem to tell,—
"Our leaves are yellow, see they die!
They vanish, take a last long look,
Thy night of death, too, draweth nigh;
More pale than autumn, like the brook
Thou glidest onward to the sea
Wild-heaving of Eternity.
Before the green grass on the mead,
Before the vine-branch on the hill,
Thy youth shall wither." And indeed
I die. A breath, funereal, chill,
Has touched me, and my winter lowers
Ere yet my spring has hardly flown,
A shrub in one day overthrown!
That had produced some common flowers,
But had too little sap to deck
Its branches thin with any fruit:
Fall, fall ye leaves, the world's a wreck!
And Hope no more hath room to shoot!
Veil from all eyes the mournful road!
Veil from my mother's blank despair
The place which must be my abode
To-morrow, and her sorrow spare.
But if towards the lonely lane
The maid I love should ever stray,
To weep when daylight softly dies,
With a slight rustle, wake again
My shadow underneath the clay,
And so console it where it lies.'
He said, and went. . . . and came not back.
The last leaf from the bough that fell
Signalled his last day on the earth.
Clouds in the heavens hung scowling, black,
When 'neath an oak of sovereign girth
They laid him in his lonely cell.
But she the loved one to the wood
Came never. By the cold grey stone
No sound is heard; the solitude
Is undisturbed save when alone,
The herdsman's steps, by chance, intrude,
Or hidden dove coos monotone.