They are gone, all those feathered companions,
That kept all the summer in tune,
And the lowering skies of November
Have forgotten the blue eyes of June.

They are gone, and the heart of the summer,
Lies dead in the quivering nest,
That empty and ragged, the autumn
Has laid on earth's leaf-covered breast.

They are gone, like a dream that has vanished —
A thought that is lost in the deep;
And down in the still garden hedges,
Just a lone white rose smiles in its sleep.

But I saw in the dawn of the springtime,
A fabric of marvellous loom,
And the melody flung from the weavers
Knew not of the blight and the gloom.

By and by a sweet mystery hovered
And thrilled through each gray-feathered breast;
And I shook down the dewdrops and counted
The three tiny eggs in the nest.

Oh! the joy of mother-love, brooding —
It giveth the whole world a proof,
From the human, with all his ambition,
To the song bird that nests on the roof.

One by one, I have watched, as they flitted,
The old and the young, from the tree —
Now the autumn wind, cruel and mocking,
Has tossed out the wreckage to me;

And it tells the old puzzle of living,
Of living and loving and death,
For the pitiful wreck of the present
Bears the past's bittersweet on its breath.

Here, a shred from the veil of the bridal,
Here, a thread from the robe of the tomb —
The blending of weeping and laughing,
The weaving of sunshine and gloom.

Here, a silken skein snarled and tangled,
Held by hands once so rosy and fair —
That prisons and fetters a sunbeam,
A wisp of a child's golden hair.

Take thy prize, oh! thou wind of the autumn —
Thou vagabond, pilfer and rob! —
Nature's heart reckons but by her season,
The human heart counts by its throb!

They are gone, all those feathered companions,
That kept all the summer in tune,
And the lowering skies of November
Have forgotten the blue eyes of June.