THE AUTUMN WOODS
THE eye of Fate is closed; the olden doom
Lies in the wrack of things.
There is no sigh;
Only the wind cries through the lonely woods,
And the barren motherhood of the world is manifest
Shamelessly
; in the dank, pale Autumn woods
The fallen leaves lie squelching under the feet
Οἱthe desolate gnomes ; and now the birds are silent,
And the streams flow sluggishly through the veins of the
world.
Dark gray and cloudy, the skies no more are blue,
And grayness reigning solitary makes music
Drearily through the wind-harp.
The dripping rain
Soddens the earth, and the stones lie thick and wet
Among the leaves ; and the trees wave naked arms
In despair to the sky.
The light is quickly dying,
And there is no more day; the dull red sun—
A sore and aching eye in a face of gray——
Droops down to slumber.
All the world is dead.
Rose! Rose!
Where art thou?
O my Rose, my Rose!
My secret Rose, art lost among the gray?
There is no voice in the silence ; in the woods
The brownness glistens under the weeping rain,
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