Because I would not dull you with my song.’

LIFE’S DECAY

‘That time of year thou may’st in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day,

As after sun-set fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.