AT DAY-CLOSE IN NOVEMBER

The ten hours’ light is abating,

And a late bird flies across,

Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,

Give their black heads a toss.

Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,

Float past like specks in the eye;

I set every tree in my June time,

And now they obscure the sky.

And the children who ramble through here

Conceive that there never has been

A time when no tall trees grew here,

A time when none will be seen.