The Yellow Book/Volume 4/An Autumn Elegy

by Charles William Dalmon

An Autumn Elegy

By C. W. Dalmon

 

Now it is fitting, and becomes us all
To think how fast our time of being fades.
 The Year puts down his mead-cup, with a sigh,
  And kneels, deep in the red and yellow glades,
   And tells his beads like one about to die;
    For, when the last leaves fall,
 He must away unto a bare, cold cell
  In white St. Winter's monastery; there
  To do hard penance for the joys that were,
 Until the New Year tolls his passing-bell.

And 'tis in vain to whisper, "Be of cheer,
 There is a resurrection after death;
  When Autumn tears will turn to Spring-time rain,
 As through the earth the Spirit quickeneth
  Toward the old, glad Summer-life again!"
    He will not smile to hear,
 But only look more sorrowful, and say,
  "How can you mock me if you love me? No;
  The day draws very nigh when I must go;
 The new will be the new; I pass away."

Yet, kneeling with him, still more sad than he,
 I saw him once turn round and smile as sweet
  As in the happy rose and lily days,
 When, from between the stubble of the wheat,
  A skylark soared up through the clouds to praise
    The sun's eternity.
 Hope seemed to flash a moment in his eyes;
  And, knowing him so well, I know he thought—
  "How fair the legend through the ages brought,
 That still to live is Death's most sweet surprise!"

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