Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Autumn

by Florence Earle Coates

For works with similar titles, see Autumn.

Not to be confused with Autumn (Coates, "In her arms unconscious lying").

AUTUMN

"WE ne'er will part!" Ah me, what plaintive sounds
Are human protests! Dear one, lift your eyes!
Behold the solemn, widespread prophecies
Of that whose shadow all our light confounds,
Of that whose being all our knowledge bounds!
Far from the faded fields the robin flies,
Upon her stem the last rose droops and dies,
And through the pines a doomful blast resounds.

As dawn is portent of the day's decline,
As joy is prelude sweet to waiting sorrow,
So ripened good is Nature's harvest sign:
Love, only, the immortal strain doth borrow,
And, high exalted by a hope divine,
Still whispers in the night of death,—
To-morrow!