Clothed in splendour, beautifully sad and
silent,
Comes the autumn over the woods and highlands,
Golden, rose-red, full of divine remembrance,
Full
of foreboding.
Soon the maples, soon will the glowing
birches,
Stripped of all that summer and love had dowered
them,
Dream, sad-limbed, beholding their pomp and treasure
Ruthlessly
scattered:
Yet they quail not: Winter with wind
and iron
Comes and finds them silent and uncomplaining,
Finds them tameless, beautiful still and gracious,
Gravely
enduring.
Me too changes, bitter and full of evil,
Dream by dream have plundered and left me naked,
Grey with sorrow. Even the days before me
Fade
into twilight,
Mute and barren. Yet will I keep my
spirit
Clear and valiant, brother to these my noble
Elms and maples, utterly grave and fearless,
Grandly
ungrieving.
Brief the span is, counting the years of
mortals,
Strange and sad; it passes, and then the bright earth,
Careless mother, gleaming with gold and azure,
Lovely
with blossoms
Shining white anémones, mixed with
roses,
Daisies mild-eyed, grasses and honeyed clover
You, and me, and all of us, met and equal,
Softly
shall cover.