_In Kensington Gardens_
Along the graceless grass of town
They rake the rows of red and brown--
Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay
Delicate, touched with gold and grey,
Raked long ago and far away.
A narrow silence in the park,
Between the lights a narrow dark.
One street rolls on the north; and one,
Muffled, upon the south doth run;
Amid the mist the work is done.
{91}
A futile crop!--for it the fire
Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre.
So go the town's lives on the breeze,
Even as the sheddings of the trees;
Bosom nor barn is filled with these.
_Alice Meynell._