Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 235. Song—The Fall of the Leaf |
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| THE LAZY mist hangs from the brow of the hill, | |
| Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill; | |
| How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear! | |
| As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year. | |
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| The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown, | 5 |
| And all the gay foppery of summer is flown: | |
| Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, | |
| How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues! | |
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| How long I have liv’d—but how much liv’d in vain, | |
| How little of life’s scanty span may remain, | 10 |
| What aspects old Time in his progress has worn, | |
| What ties cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn. | |
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| How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain’d! | |
| And downward, how weaken’d, how darken’d, how pain’d! | |
| Life is not worth having with all it can give— | 15 |
| For something beyond it poor man sure must live. | |
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