The reapers come in doleful, starveling bands,
To bind the blackened sheaves with listless hands;
For rain has put their sowing-toil to scorn.
O Love, I bade you go; and autumn brings
Bleak desolation; yet within my heart
Unquenched and fierce the flame you kindled springs;
For, echoing all day long, the courtyard rings
As loud it rang when, rending Love apart,
Your white horse cantered--swift and keen to start--
Into a world of other queens and kings.