By his gaunt hands the leaves are shed In headlong troops and nightmare herds; And, like a witch who calls the dead, The hill-stream whirls with foaming words. Then all is sudden silence and Dark fear -- like his who cannot see, Yet hears, lost in a haunted land, Death rattling on a gallow's-tree. IV The days approach again; the days Whose mantles stream, whose sandals drag, When in the haze by puddled ways The gnarled thorn seems a crooked hag. When rotting orchards reek with rain; And woodlands crumble, leaf and log; And in the drizzling yard again The gourd is tagged with points of fog. Now let me seat my soul among The woods' dim dreams, and come in touch With melancholy, sad of tongue And sweet, who says so much, so much. The Recessional. [Charles G. D. Roberts] Now along the solemn heights Fade the Autumn's altar-lights; Down the great earth's glimmering chancel Glide the days and nights. Little kindred of the grass, Like a shadow in a glass Falls the dark and falls the stillness; We must rise and pass. We must rise and follow, wending Where the nights and days have ending, -- Pass in order pale and slow Unto sleep extending. Little brothers of the clod, Soul of fire and seed of sod, We must fare into the silence At the knees of God. Little comrades of the sky, Wing to wing we wander by, Going, going, going, going, Softly as a sigh. Hark, the moving shapes confer, Globe of dew and gossamer, Fading and ephemeral spirits In the dusk astir. Moth and blossom, blade and bee, Worlds must go as well as we, In the long procession joining Mount and star and sea. Toward the shadowy brink we climb Where the round year rolls sublime, Rolls, and drops, and falls forever In the vast of time. Like a plummet plunging deep Past the utmost reach of sleep, Till remembrance has no longer Care to laugh or weep. I know not why. [Morris Rosenfeld] I lift mine eyes against the sky, The clouds are weeping, so am I; I lift mine eyes again on high, The sun is smiling, so am I. Why do I smile? Why do I weep? I do not know; it lies too deep. I hear the winds of autumn sigh, They break my heart, they make me cry; I hear the birds of lovely spring, My hopes revive, I help them sing. Why do I sing? Why do I cry? It lies so deep, I know not why. Winter Sleep. [Edith M. Thomas] I know it must be winter (though I sleep) -- I know it must be winter, for I dream I dip my bare feet in the running stream, And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep. I know I must be old (how age deceives!) I know I must be old, for, all unseen, My heart grows young, as autumn fields grow green, When late rains patter on the falling sheaves. I know I must be tired (and tired souls err) -- I know I must be tired, for all my soul To deeds of daring beats a glad, faint roll, As storms the riven pine to music stir.