The Death of the Flowers

    Of wailing² winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sere³；

    Heaped in the hollows of the grove⁴ the autumn leaves lie dead；

    They rustle⁵ to the eddying⁶ gust⁷ and to the rabbit's tread；

    The robin⁸ and the wren⁹ are flown and from the shrubs¹⁰ the jay

    And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

    Where are the flowers the fair young flowers that lately sprang and stood

    In brighter light and softer airs a beauteous sisterhood？

    Alas¹¹！ they all are in their graves the gentle race of flowers

    Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours.

    The rain is falling where they lie but the cold November rain

    Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

    The wind-flower and the violet they perished long ago

    And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow；

    But on the hill the goldenrod and the aster¹² in the wood

    And the blue sunflower by the brook¹³ in autumn beauty stood

    Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven as falls the plague on men

    And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland glade¹⁴ and glen.

    And now when comes the calm mild day as still such days will come

    To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home；

    When the sound of dropping nuts is heard though all the trees are still

    And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill

    The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance¹⁵ late he bore

    And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

    And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died

    The fair meek¹⁶ blossom that grew up and faded by my side.

    In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forests cast the leaf

    And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief：

    Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours

    So gentle and so beautiful should perish with the flowers.