The leaves are falling, falling,
The yellow treetops wave,
Ah, all delight and beauty
Is drawing to the grave.
About the wood's crest flicker
The wan sun's laggard rays,
They are the parting kisses
Of fleeting summer days.
Meseems I should be shedding
The heart's-tears from my eyes,
The day will keep recalling
The time of our good-byes:
I knew that you were dying
And I must pass away,
Oh I was the waning summer,
And you were the wood's decay.
1881.
"THOSE DAYS ARE LONG DEPARTED"
Those days are long departed,
Gone where the dead dreams are,
Since we two children started
To look for the morning star.
We asked our way of the swallow
In his language that we knew,
We were sad we could not follow
So swift the blue bird flew.
We set our wherry drifting
Between the poplar trees,
And the banks of meadows shifting
Were the shores of unknown seas.
We talked of the white snow prairies
That lie by the Northern lights,
And of woodlands where the fairies
Are seen in the moonlit nights.
Till one long day was over
And we grew too tired to roam,
And through the corn and clover
We slowly wandered home.
Ah child! with love and laughter
We had journeyed out so far;
We who went in the big years after
To look for another star;
But I go unbefriended
Through wind and rain and foam,--
One day was hardly ended
When the angel took you home.
1881.