ONE DAY IN AUTUMN
With all our going through this golden weather,
Where leaves have littered every forest way,
If there be lovers, they should be together:
For this is golden ... but the end is grey.
Beyond this shimmer where the bright leaves fall,
Behind this haze of silver shot with gold,
There is a greyness waiting for it all,—
A little longer ... and the world is old.
And never loneliness grew more and more,
As this that haunts these late October days,
With smoky twilights gathering at the door,
With grey mist clouding on familiar ways ...
And well for him who has another near,
When fires are lighted for the dying year.
AN OLD HOUSE AND GARDEN
After wet twilights, when the rain is done,
I think they walk these ways that knew their feet,
And tread these sunken pavements, one by one,
Keen for old Summers that were wild and sweet;
Where rainy lilacs blow against the dark,
And grasses bend beneath the weight they [bear],
The night grows troubled, and we still may mark
Their ghostly heart-break on the tender air.
Be still! We cannot know what trysts they keep,
What eager hands reach vainly for a door,
Remembered since they folded them in sleep,—
Frail hands that lift like lilacs, evermore,
And lean along the darkness, pale and still,
To touch a window or a crumbling sill.