Classic Poem

“Summer is dead!”—it was the wind that spake
In the bronze mantle of the sombre pine—
“The sumach bush unfurls a scarlet sign;
The sere rush signals it in stream and lake;
Soundeth a requiem in gilded brake,
Where mateless birds a lonely fate repine;
The sky is veiled in tears; each gray confine
Bespeaks the shrunken branch the leaves forsake.

“I laugh with ruddy Autumn in the morn;
I sound his praises in the golden light;
But when high noon has passed and raven night
Comes rushing down, I wail with those forlorn:
The dying leaves, the lone flowers, pale and torn,
The multitudes confronting death or flight.”