AUTUMN EVEN-SONG

The long cloud edged with streaming grey

Soars from the West;

The red leaf mounts with it away,

Showing the nest

A blot among the branches bare:

There is a cry of outcasts in the air.

Swift little breezes, darting chill,

Pant down the lake;

A crow flies from the yellow hill,

And in its wake

A baffled line of labouring rooks:

Steel-surfaced to the light the river looks.

Pale on the panes of the old hall

Gleams the lone space

Between the sunset and the squall;

And on its face

Mournfully glimmers to the last:

Great oaks grow mighty minstrels in the blast.

Pale the rain-rutted roadways shine

In the green light

Behind the cedar and the pine:

Come, thundering night!

Blacken broad earth with hoards of storm:

For me yon valley-cottage beckons warm.