 | Poems and Romances |  |
263
FALLING LEAVES.
On a bare hill a thin elm's spindle crestWas glorified by kisses of the sky,
Where harvest sunshine made the shrill wind die
Till evening, and the waning year had rest.
Only about a blackened empty nest
Some lonely rooks kept an unrestful cry;
Below the babbling brook of reeds was dry
In the green valley trending to the west,
Green still; on either side the lands were ploughed,
Whence carrying scanty sheaves of ill-saved grain
On creaking wheels went by a broken wain,
Whereon three harvest men who whistled loud;
But in the shadow of a rising cloud
Two scarlet leaves fell in a pool of rain.
| Poems and Romances | |