The Death of Summer.
19
For mark! how frail is their tenure,
As linked with tendril and stem;
Soon the death-wind will sever, and wide
Over the wood scatter them.
What is the butterfly saying,
As tangled now in the vine,
She flutters her frail gauzy wings,
Vainly wooing the pale sun-shine?
As linked with tendril and stem;
Soon the death-wind will sever, and wide
Over the wood scatter them.
What is the butterfly saying,
As tangled now in the vine,
She flutters her frail gauzy wings,
Vainly wooing the pale sun-shine?
Leaf, and rill, and forest gloom,
All echo one song to me;
They say, "The summer is dying,
And buried for ever to be."
That life's but a passing shadow,
Or the mist of early day;
Or dying summer that we mourn,
With her dead leaves blown away.
All echo one song to me;
They say, "The summer is dying,
And buried for ever to be."
That life's but a passing shadow,
Or the mist of early day;
Or dying summer that we mourn,
With her dead leaves blown away.
Bagni di Lucca, 1859.
