Poems (Kennedy)/Autumn
For works with similar titles, see Autumn.
AUTUMN
THE year that came barefooted through The summer's dust-white lanesHas found her sandals by the hedge Where drip the autumn rains,87 And bound them on her slender feet Bruised with the long hot trail,And gone again the onward way With lusty pilgrim hail.
She counts the sparrows on the rail, Brown notes of song they seemLeft by some singer in the sun Of summer's long lost dream.The Bobwhite's call she whistles back Across the wind-blown sedge,Or laughs into an empty nest Bared in the rifled hedge.
Her once loose hair is braided close And crowned with crimson leavesAnd now and then she stops to lift A gleaner's golden sheaves;And now and then, without a thought Of lawlessness or shame,With quick incendiary torch She sets the woods aflame.
For on before there swiftly passed— Unseen of eyes of man—The Gypsy Frost, and laid for her The year's last patteran.And she will follow that dim path As o'er the hills it goesUntil she casts her crimson crown Down at the Gate of Snows.