What matters if winter be nigh?
We sang summer to sleep,
And autumn on its bed of leaves.
Now comes the hour of parting for us,
As the last light flickers and fades;
Even love's afterglow dying, and is dead.
Alas! thou art gone, as are the hours of day;
The hard gem-burning stars do not set! Oh,
In what dark, in what forest roamest thou?
24
THE END
Art thou about me
Amid falling leaves
And autumn's circling winds
When the golden shadows
Grow russet and rosy
And the purple sunset sets fire to the sky?
Art thou the breath
That burns my being
When cold feel my limbs in terror, and awe?
Who art thou? My love?
Stranger in a strange garb!
Far and farther to be nearer to my heart!
Why make spring-flames leap
From passion's autumn leaves?
Why this urge through fatigue
When time falls fast asleep
Under the shadow of its grave—
The winter ice?
Yet, and yet
The circling winds
Repeat passionate speech,
The sunset burns,
As my soul
In desire's golden heat,
Though night be not far
Shadows creep near
With chilling breath and clutching hands
To pluck
To destroy
The flowers of yielding from your heart:
Powerless, fear-stricken;
I tremble, I stagger, I fall
Into oblivion's pit
As time creeps
Into winter's grave
Silent, empty, white.