The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Autumn: A Dirge
AUTUMN: A DIRGE
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]
I.The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the YearOn the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,Is lying. 5Come, Months, come away,From November to May,In your saddest array;Follow the bierOf the dead cold Year, 10And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
II.The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knellingFor the Year;The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone 15To his dwelling.Come, Months, come away;Put on white, black and gray;Let your light sisters play—Ye, follow the bier 20Of the dead cold Year,And make her grave green with tear on tear.