THE END OF SUMMER

The rose, that wrote its message on the noon's

Bright manuscript, has turned her perfumed face

Towards Fall, and waits, heart-heavy, for the moon's

Pale flower to take her place.

With eyes distraught, and dark disheveled hair,

The Season dons a tattered cloak of storm

And waits with Night that, darkly, seems to share

Her trouble and alarm.

It is the close of summer. In the sky

The sunset lit a fire of drift and sat

Watching the last Day, robed in empire, die

Upon the burning ghat.

The first leaf crimsons and the last rose falls,

And Night goes stalking on, her cloak of rain

Dripping, and followed through her haunted halls

By ail Death's phantom train.

The sorrow of the Earth and all that dies,

And all that suffers, in her breast she bears;

Outside the House of Life she stops and cries

The burden of her cares.

Then on the window knocks with crooked hands,

Her tree-like arms to Heaven wildly-hurled:

Love hears her crying, “Who then understands?—

Has God forgot the world?”