MANUSCRIPTS

As some monastic scrivener in his cell,

Sensing a chill along the stony crypt,

Might labour yet more gorgeously to spell

The final, splendid entries of his script,—

So with bright rubrics has the Autumn writ

A coloured chronicle of things that pass,

Thumbing a yellow parchment that is lit

With brief, illumined letters through the grass.

With what a prodigality of stains,

Is fashioned this last entry and design,

By one aware of cold, approaching rains,—

Who senses, through each iridescent line,

A presence at the shoulder — chills and blights,

Winds that will snuff his letters out like lights.