| |
| (O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, | |
| She is not by, to know my task is done.) | |
| In the brown grasses slanting with the wind, | |
| Lone as a lad whose dog’s no longer near, | |
| Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned, | 5 |
| Lone on the loved hill … and below me here | |
| The thistle-down in tremulous atmosphere | |
| Along red clusters of the sumach streams; | |
| The shrivelled stalks of golden-rod are sere, | |
| And crisp and white their flashing old racemes. | 10 |
| (… forever … forever …. forever …) | |
| This is the lonely season of the year, | |
| This is the season of our lonely dreams. | |
| |
| (O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, | |
| She is not by, to know my task is done!) | 15 |
| The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plain | |
| Show like an Indian village of dead days; | |
| The long smoke trails behind the crawling train, | |
| And floats atop the distant woods ablaze | |
| With orange, crimson, purple. The low haze | 20 |
| Dims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea, | |
| Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glaze | |
| Await yon full-moon of the night-to-be, | |
| (… far … and far … and far …) | |
| These are the solemn horizons of man’s ways, | 25 |
| These are the horizons of solemn thought to me. | |
| |
| (O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, | |
| She is not by, to know my task is done!) | |
| And this the hill she visited, as friend; | |
| And this the hill she lingered on, as bride— | 30 |
| Down in the yellow valley is the end: | |
| They laid her … in no evening autumn tide … | |
| Under fresh flowers of that May morn, beside | |
| The queens and cave-women of ancient earth … | |
| |
| This is the hill … and over my city’s towers, | 35 |
| Across the world from sunset, yonder in air, | |
| Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic dome | |
| Of pilèd masonry, which shall be ours | |
| To give, completed, to our children there … | |
| And yonder far roof of my abandoned home | 40 |
| Shall house new laughter … Yet I tried … I tried | |
| And, ever wistful of the doom to come, | |
| I built her many a fire for love … for mirth … | |
| (When snows were falling on our oaks outside, | |
| Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) … | 45 |
| (… farewell … farewell … farewell …) | |
| We dare not think too long on those who died, | |
| While still so many yet must come to birth. | |
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