THE old dry leaf came circling down,
On a windy autumn day,
The leaf all sere, and glazed, and brown,
On the bleak, bare hill to play;
And the sky put on its dreariest frown,
On that windy autumn day.
The heavy clouds went drifting by,
As gray as gray could be,
And not a speck of azure sky
Could the worn-out wanderer see;
That dark, stern man, low crouching by
The gnarlèd old oak tree.
But drearer grew the inky sky,
As daylight fled away,
And the winds came out, and hurried by,
As if they dared not stay;
Howling afar, and shrieking nigh,
Like spirits doomed, at play.
Then the old man shook his hoary head,
As on his staff leaned he,
For the sky above with blood seemed red,
And the earth a bloody sea;
And on him crimson drops were shed
From the boughs of the old oak tree.
Then the old man laughed a horrid laugh,
And shook his head again,
And clenching fast his crooked staff,
He turned him to the plain;
And the hills rung back his hellish laugh,
Mocking in wild disdain.
On, on he hurried, but still there rung
That laugh back from the hill;
While livid clouds above him hung,
And forms, his blood to chill
High o'er his head in mid-air swung,
And all were laughing still!
The old man noted not his way,
For his heart grew cold with fear;
And language never breathed by day
Was whispered in his ear:
But he hurried on, for he dared not stay,
Those awful words to hear!
He had trod that self-same path before,
Ere evening, when he fled
That mangled form bathed all in gore,
And to the hill-side sped;
And now at midnight met once more
The murderer and the dead!
Hushed were the winds, the clouds rolled back,
And on that lonely dell,
Revealing clear a blood-marked track,
The cold, pale starlight fell;
Ah! light the old man did not lack,
His handiwork to tell.
He had loved full long and well the youth,
So cold and quiet lain,
But what to him was love or truth?
For bitter words and vain
Had passed that day; and now, in sooth,
He ne'er might love again!
Morn came; and on one fearful bed,
In that dark, lonely wild,
With sere brown leaves of autumn spread,
The sun looked down and smiled;
But there they lay, stiff, cold, and dead--
The old man and his child!