Autumn

With golden exuberance,

The day burgeoned once,

Childlike and innocent light

Streamed from, oh! so high

Above, and the festivities of

Summer we awaited joyfully.

Whereto light esapes us, now?

Oh, and words, what of them

Is left? Vapour, mist, Autumn's

Reigning mates, the cohorts of

Oblivion. Gray the sky; the sea

Glassily rests neath the hilltops.

Sun, ever-loving, amber-light!

Why you turn your ray-spears

Against your children, why the

Flame that nurtured and caressed

Now sears the flowers of your

Rainbow field, oh, loving mother?

Dried up sunflowers, oh, like

Children round their mother, Sun;

They gaze upward with blind

Love and fervorous anticipation of

Rain, their salvation. Yet, the

Sky has no tears left to shed for the

World, nor any love to spare for

Down-trodden victims of chance,

For they've loved the Sun, its light;

But this love's been repaid in death.

Oh, sickness, oh love! At Summer's

End our shadows grow cold an' long.