Classic Poem

Autumn closes
Round the roses,
Shatters, strips them, head by head;
Winter passes
O'er the grasses,
Turns them yellow, brown and red;
Can a lover
E'er recover
When his summer love is dead?

Yet the swallow
Turns to follow
In the northward wake of spring,
To refashion
Wasted passion
With a sweep of his dark wing,
As returning
Love flies burning
To these stricken lips that sing.