Autumn

"We ne'er will part!" Ah me, what plaintive soundsAre human protests! Dear one, lift your eyes!Behold the solemn, widespread propheciesOf that whose shadow all our light confounds,Of that whose being all our knowledge bounds!Far from the faded fields the robin flies,Upon her stem the last rose droops and dies,And through the pines a doomful blast resounds.As dawn is portent of the day's decline,As joy is prelude sweet to waiting sorrow,So ripened good is Nature's harvest sign:Love, only, the immortal strain doth borrow,And, high exalted by a hope divine,Still whispers in the night of death,—To-morrow!