Last year, and other years,
When autumn was a vision of old friendships,
Of friends gone many ways,
I stood alone upon a bank of coppered fern,
I breathed my height of isolation,
Encircled by a remembering countryside.
I touched dead fingers in a larch ...
I sailed on long blue waves of land
Flowing transfixed the whole horizon round ...
I wore the old imperial robes
Of aster, sumac, golden-rod ...
I flaunted my banners of maple ...
And, when the sun went down,
I lay full length
Upon a scarlet death-bed.
So kingly a thing was autumn,
Other years.

But here you stand beside me on this hill,
And shake your head and smile your smile
And twist these things lightly between your fingers
As a pinch of dust —
And bare your throat
And show me only spring,
Spring, spring,
Fluttering like your slender side,
Cascading like your hair.