Autumn’s Warnings

SOFT voices of the woods, that make

   The summer air a harmony,

Winged whispers through the leaves where wake

   Long wind-wafts dying in a sigh,

Replies of birds from brake to brake,

   Plash of the runnel on its stones,

Soft voices, sweet for summer's sake,

   There is a word in all your tones,

A word that not till now ye spake,

"Goodbye, goodbye."

And yet, see, dearest, overhead

   The branches bar a sultry sky,

No earliest fleck of tanned or red

   'Mid all the leafage far and nigh,

And, with their serried curves outspread,

   The fresh green fern-fronds know no frost.

Nought gone; but still some grace is dead:

   Nought changed; but still some hope is lost:

Listen, and every voice has said

"Goodbye, goodbye."

We shall not see the summer wane,

   But, with a start of memory,

When the long chills have come again,

   Awake and know that it did die:

So slowest loss is sudden pain;

   We have not known till all is o'er;

'Tis summer till the autumn's rain.

   Yet has there stolen long before

That sadness through some sweetest strain

"Goodbye, goodbye."

Ah, love, hear all the thought that grew;

   Mock it away; I'll mock it, I:

Summer, and I sit here with you,

   Your great eyes smiling tenderly,

Your silence wooing me to woo,

   A meaning in your lightest word

As though love made it something new—

   And what if all the while I heard

The autumn whisper sighing through

"Goodbye, goodbye"?