Classic Poem

Day fades with fading colours from the sky,
And blue smoke blowing where the hills are gold,
Is all a tale of loveliness gone by:
Summer is ended, and the year is old,
Beauty and bloom are wet leaves in the grass,
And music is a lone wind on the hill,
Crying that all things beautiful must pass,
Crying that beauty is remembered still.

There will be wood-mist moving by the gate,
There will be gathering to the fire by night,
The greying ashes falling in the grate,--
And long remembering, in the failing light,
Of ghosts returning for a wisp of fame,
Cloudy and brief along the smoke and flame.