Hallowmas

All hushed of glee,
The last chill bee
Clings wearily
   To the dying aster:
   The leaves drop faster:
   And all around, red as disaster,
The forest crimsons with tree on tree.
 
A butterfly,
The last to die,
Droops heavily by,
   Weighed down with torpor:
   The air grows sharper:
   And the wind in the trees, like some sad harper,
Sits and sorrows with sigh on sigh.
 
The far crows call;
The acorns fall;
And over all
   The Autumn raises
   Dun mists and hazes,
   Through which her soul, it seemeth, gazes
On ghosts and dreams in carnival.
 
The end is near:
The dying Year
Leans low to hear
   Her own heart breaking,
   And Beauty taking
   Her flight, and all her dreams forsaking
Her soul, bowed down 'mid the sad and sere.
 

From The Poems of Madison Cawein: Volume V: Poems of Meditation and of Forest and Field​ (Small, Maynard and Company, 1907) by Madison Julius Cawein. This poem is in the public domain.