Dead Leaves

DAWN     As though a gipsy maiden with dim look,         Sat crooning by the roadside of the year,         So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here     To read dark fortunes for us from the book     Of fate; thou flingest in the crinkled brook         The trembling maple's gold, and frosty-clear         Thy mocking laughter thrills the atmosphere,     And drifting on its current calls the rook     To other lands.    As one who wades, alone,         Deep in the dusk, and hears the minor talk     Of distant melody, and finds the tone,         In some wierd way compelling him to stalk     The paths of childhood over, - so I moan,         And like a troubled sleeper, groping, walk.         DUSK     The frightened herds of clouds across the sky         Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day         Into the dusky forest-lands of gray     And somber twilight.    Far, and faint, and high     The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry         Sad as the wail of some poor castaway         Who sees a vessel drifting far astray     Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.     The children, riotous from school, grow bold         And quarrel with the wind, whose angry gust     Plucks off the summer hat, and flaps the fold         Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust     In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold         Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.          NIGHT     Funereal Darkness, drear and desolate,         Muffles the world.    The moaning of the wind         Is piteous with sobs of saddest kind;     And laughter is a phantom at the gate     Of memory.    The long-neglected grate         Within sprouts into flame and lights the mind         With hopes and wishes long ago refined     To ashes, - long departed friends await         Our words of welcome: and our lips are dumb     And powerless to greet the ones that press         Old kisses there.    The baby beats its drum,     And fancy marches to the dear caress         Of mother-arms, and all the gleeful hum     Of home intrudes upon our loneliness.