Autumn Song (draft)

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

a

Autumn Song

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Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift heat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain
In autumn at the fall of the leaf,
Knowest thou not?—and how the chief
Of joys seems not to suffer pain.

Know'st thou and at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In autumn at the fall of the leaf?

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