THE FALL OF THE LEAVES[1]
(From the French of Millevoye)
Autumn had strewn on field and vale
The dead leaves from the forest reft:
Naked the mournful groves were left,
And silent was the nightingale.
Oppressed with melancholy thought
An invalid, in years but young,
But by long suffering unstrung,
The wood beloved in boyhood sought.
Dear wood, he said, adieu! adieu!
Like me you mourn your hapless fate;
Forlorn and all disconsolate,
In yours my own sad doom I view.
A messenger of final doom
Each leaf in falling seems to say,
Soon thou like us shalt pass away.
Thy fate like ours is steeped in gloom:
Around thee dose the shades of death;
Wanner than autumn's wannest leaf
Soon must thou yield thy latest breath,—
No respite hope, however brief.
- ↑ "Millevoy's 'Chute des Feuilles' has been called not unhappily 'La Marseillaise des Mélancholiques.' His other poetical work is never likely to be generally read."—George Saintsbury.
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