Poems (Cromwell)/Autumn Communion
AUTUMN COMMUNION
This autumn afternoon My fancy need invent No untried sacrament. Man can still commune With Beauty as of old: The tree, the wind's lyre, The whirling dust, the fire—In these my faith is told.
Beauty warms us all: When horizons crimson burn, We hold heaven's cup in turn. The dry leaves, gleaming, fall, Crumbs of mystical bread; My dole of Beauty I break, Love to my lips I take, And fear is quieted.
The symbols of old are made new: I watch the reeds and the rushes; The spruce trees dip their brushes In the mountain's dusky blue: The sky is deep like a pool; A fragrance the wind brings over Is warm like hidden clover, Though the wind itself is cool
Across the air, between The stems and the grey things, Sunlight a trellis flings. In quietude I lean: I hear the lifting zephyr Soft and shy and wild; And I feel earth gentle and mild Like the eyes of a velvet heifer.
Love scatters and love disperses. Lightly the orchards dance In a lovely radiance. Down sloping terraces They toss their mellow fruits. The rhythmic wind is sowing, Softly the floods are flowing Between the twisted roots. What Beauty need I own
When the symbol satisfies? I follow services Of tree and cloud and stone. Color floods the world; I am swayed by sympathy; Love is a litany In leaf and cloud unfurled.