IV. AUTUMN IN CORNWALL

The year lies fallen and faded

On cliffs by clouds invaded,

With tongues of storms upbraided,

With wrath of waves bedinned;

And inland, wild with warning,

As in deaf ears or scorning,

The clarion even and morning

Rings of the south-west wind.

The wild bents wane and wither

In blasts whose breath bows hither

Their grey-grown heads and thither,

Unblest of rain or sun;

The pale fierce heavens are crowded

With shapes like dreams beclouded,

As though the old year enshrouded

Lay, long ere life were done.

Full-charged with oldworld wonders,

From dusk Tintagel thunders

A note that smites and sunders

The hard frore fields of air;

A trumpet stormier-sounded

Than once from lists rebounded

When strong men sense-confounded

Fell thick in tourney there.

From scarce a duskier dwelling

Such notes of wail rose welling

Through the outer darkness, telling

In the awful singer's ears

What souls the darkness covers,

What love-lost souls of lovers,

Whose cry still hangs and hovers

In each man's born that hears.

For there by Hector's brother

And yet some thousand other

He that had grief to mother

Passed pale from Dante's sight;

With one fast linked as fearless,

Perchance, there only tearless;

Iseult and Tristram, peerless

And perfect queen and knight.

A shrill-winged sound comes flying

North, as of wild souls crying

The cry of things undying,

That know what life must be;

Or as the old year's heart, stricken

Too sore for hope to quicken

By thoughts like thorns that thicken,

Broke, breaking with the sea.