Pictures in Rhyme/Why?

by Arthur Clark Kennedy

For works with similar titles, see Why?.

WHY?

East winds, allying
With autumn austere,
Drive beauty, dying,
Into the mere.

Under the shrill blasts
Chilling the warm blood,
A woman with wrinkles,
Back-bent and doubled,
Is gathering firewood,
Her limbs palsy-troubled.

Woman with wrinkles,
Why art thou here,
And beauty lying
Drowned in the mere?