IN
OCTOBER
Along the
waste, a great way off, the pines,
Like tall slim priests of storm,
stand up and bar
The low long strip of dolorous red that lines
The under west, where wet winds
moan afar.
The cornfields all are brown, and brown the meadows
5
With the blown leaves’ wind-heapèd
traceries,
And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows,
And bear no bloom for bees.
As slowly
earthward leaf by red leaf slips,
The sad leaves rustle in chill
misery,
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A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips,
That move and murmur incoherently;
As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing,
With pale hushed throats, for
death is at the door,
So many low soft masses for the dying
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Sweet leaves that live no more.
Here I will
sit upon this naked stone,
Draw my coat closer with my
numbed hands,
And hear the ferns sigh, and the wet woods moan,
And send my heart out to the
ashen lands;
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And I will ask myself what golden madness,
What balmèd breaths of dreamland
spicery,
What visions of soft laughter and light sadness
Were sweet last month to me.
The dry dead
leaves flit by with thin weird tunes,
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Like failing murmurs of some
conquered creed,
Graven in mystic markings with strange runes,
That none but stars and biting
winds may read;
Here I will wait a little; I am weary,
Not torn with pain of any lurid
hue,
30
But only still and very grey and dreary,
Sweet sombre lands, like you.
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