THE PASSING

Ere the thread is loosed,

And the sands run low,

And the last hope fails,

Wherever we fare,

O Fond and True,

May it fall that we come in the end,

Come back to the crimson valleys,

Back to the Indian Summer,

Back to the northern pine-lands,

And the grey lakes draped with silence,

And the sunlight thin and poignant,

And the leaf that flutters earthward,

And the skyline green and lonely,

And the ramparts of the dead world

Ruddy with wintry rose!

May we fare, O Fond and True,

Through our soft-houred Indian Summer,

Through the paling twilight weather,

And facing the lone green uplands,

And greeting the sun-warmed hills,

Step into the pineland shadows

And enter the sunset valley

And go as the glory goes

Out of the dreaming autumn,

Out of the drifting leaf

And the dying light!