The Fallen Leaf.
Autumn’s here: the leaves are flitting,
Thousands o’er the fields are tripping,—
O! watch them as they fall:
Go, eye them as they leave the tree,
All fluttering down reluctantly
Across the beams of Sol.
See ye the Sun—far down the west—
As he goes forth (as ’twere to rest),
And bids one half[82] “Good-night?” * * *
Well—tens of thousands go with him
Down o’er that bank with gilded brim;
Whilst the proud sky is dight
With clouds, like flowers of beauteous tint
Strewn o’er the heav’nly continent
And capering with the breeze—
Stretch’d far and wide and circling round,
And frisking through the vast profound,
As leaves frisk from the trees.
D’ye ween the meaning of my line?—
When Sol goes down that great incline,
I’d have ye think, with me,
That thousands have gone o’er the hill—
Whilst he goes on revolving still—
Unto eternity!
If right ye ween, I’d have you be—
Yea! like that orb—as readily
Prepared to leave the Earth.
Ye high, ye low, ye rich, ye poor,
Ye crownèd head, ambassador,—
No matter rank or birth,—
Reflect ye: for, like as the leaf
Falls down without a sign of grief,
Nor deigns to heave a sigh,
The monarch or the statesman must
Fall down and crumble into dust—
As all are born to die!
Altho’ we[83] mourn for one now gone,
And he—that grey-hair’d Palmerston,[84]
We will give God the praise,—
For he, beyond the age of man,[85]
Eleven years had over-ran
Within two equal days.
London, 18th October, 1865.
[82] One hemisphere.
[83] The nation.
[84] The Right Honourable Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, K.G., G.C.B., &c. (the then Premier of the British Government), died at “Brockett Hall,” Herts, at a quarter to eleven o’clock in the forenoon of Wednesday, 18th October, 1865, aged eighty-one years (all but two days), having been born on the 20th October, 1784. The above lines were written on the occasion of his death.
[85] Scriptural limitation.
