The year is dying, soberly the trees
Are mellowing — with a dull sad face
They lean against the sadness of the sky:
The glory of the summer has gone by.
Gone is the smile of gladness from the place.
O sad to see the sun come later up.
And sad to see him pass betimes away,
And sad the pallid glints he throws across
The leaf-strewn garden; sad the sense of loss,
The all-pervading fragrance of decay.
Yet at the open window, as I sit
With closed eyes, and hear the gentle rain
Fall on the damp green earth like lovers' sighs,
And feel the breath of earth uprise
From far and near, from hillock and from plain,
The same soft drip of lightly falling showers.
Upon the moss-greens growing everywhere,
The same strange stilly warmness in the lift.
The cawing of the rooks, the gentle drift
Of odorous distillings in the air,
Daffodils growing on the field's green breast.
Buds all a-blow, and the enchanted breath
Of violets peeping in the damp hedgerow,
Kindled to being — O mystery, that so
Death looks like life, and life so like to death!
