Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/Autumn even-song

by George Meredith

AUTUMN EVEN-SONG.

The long cloud edged with streaming gray,
Soars from the west;
The red leaf mounts with it away,
Showing the nest
A blot among the branches bare:
There is a cry of outcasts in the air.

Swift little breezes, darting chill,
Pant down the lake;
A crow files from the yellow hill,
And in its wake
A baffled line of labouring rooks:
A purple bow the shadowless river looks.

Pale on the panes of the old hall
Gleams the lone space
Between the sunset and the squall;
And on its face
Mournfully glimmers to the last:
Great oaks grow mighty minstrels in the blast.

Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine
In the green light
Behind the cedar and the pine:
Come, thundering night!
Blacken broad earth with hoards of storm:
For me you valley-cottage beckons warm.

George Meredith.

 

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