Classic Poem

1

Fall: red leaf, yellow leaf and brown
Falling one by one, and one by one;
Browning fields and browning grass and weeds;
Silence save for a wind disconsolate, grave;
Birds, where are they? Gone, all gone, save one;
Sunsets greenish gold, and shivering darks;
And the one lone robin sobbing through the dusk;
And your love, your love of the spring, where is it?
And my love ah! my love for you, what of it?

2

Spring was it? Only one wee, short spring ago?
Time of the delicate grass, the crimsoning trees;
The exquisite arbutus hiding 'neath the brown;
The chaste anemones, the purpling violets,
The maddening shouts of joyous, mating birds;
The tender, languid twilights, the wooing winds;
The slim slips of maiden moons, the shimmering stars;
And our love, our first love, glorious, yielding;
Our clinging hands, our clinging lips — Ah cease, the Spring Is dead!

3

And we stand here under the autumn skies,
Under the twilight stars, under the gold, gold moon,
Big, phlegmatic. Here, — but you have forgot;
And the wind prods the dead leaves to our feet
Your hand does not seek mine You smile, the smile
Is not for me. It is for the new life and dreams
Wherein I have no part. You speak, can I hear?
You smile, can smile, and your dead love lies between
I am a woman, I smile, too, only we women know why.