75 Autumn poems

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd, And Summer from her golden collar slips And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud, Save when by fits the warmer air deceives, And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower, She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves, And tries the old tunes over for an hour. The wind, whose tender whisper in the May Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove, Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day And makes his cold and unsuccessful love. The rose has taken off her tire of red— The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost, And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost. The robin, that was busy all the June, Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough, Catching our hearts up in his golden tune, Has given place to the brown cricket now. The very cock crows lonesomely at morn— Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides— Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides. Shut up the door: who loves me must not look Upon the withered world, but haste to bring His lighted candle, and his story-book, And live with me the poetry of Spring.

The rusty leaves crunch and crackle, Blue haze hangs from the dimmed sky, The fields are matted with sun-tanned stalks — Wind rushes by. The last red berries hang from the thorn-tree, The last red leaves fall to the ground. Bleakness, through the trees and bushes, Comes without sound.

1 What is sometimes called a tongue of flame or an arm extended burning is only the long red and orange branch of a green maple in early September   reaching into the greenest field out of the green woods   at the edge of which the birch trees appear a little tattered   tired of sustaining delicacy all through the hot summer   re- minding everyone (in our family) of a Russian song   a story by Chekhov   or my father 2 What is sometimes called a tongue of flame or an arm extended   burning is only the long red and orange branch of a green maple in early September   reaching into the greenest field out of the green woods   at the edge of which the birch trees appear a little tattered   tired of sustaining delicacy all through the hot summer   re- minding everyone (in our family) of a Russian song   a story by Chekhov or my father on his own lawn   standing beside his own wood in the United States of America   saying (in Russian) this birch is a lovely tree   but among the others somehow superficial

A touch of cold in the Autumn night— I walked abroad, And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge Like a red-faced farmer. I did not stop to speak, but nodded, And round about were the wistful stars With white faces like town children.

The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot. The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed. Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

Autumn is always too early. The peonies are still blooming, bees are still working out ideal states, and the cold bayonets of autumn suddenly glint in the fields and the wind rages. What is its origin? Why should it destroy dreams, arbors, memories? The alien enters the hushed woods, anger advancing, insinuating plague; woodsmoke, the raucous howls of Tatars. Autumn rips away leaves, names, fruit, it covers the borders and paths, extinguishes lamps and tapers; young autumn, lips purpled, embraces mortal creatures, stealing their existence. Sap flows, sacrificed blood, wine, oil, wild rivers, yellow rivers swollen with corpses, the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche, gush. Breathless autumn, racing, blue knives glinting in her glance. She scythes names like herbs with her keen sickle, merciless in her blaze and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror, Red Army.

All day I have watched the purple vine leaves Fall into the water. And now in the moonlight they still fall, But each leaf is fringed with silver.

I walk outside the stone wall Looking into the park at night As armed trees frisk a windfall Down paths that lampposts light

In their yellow-most goings, leaves of maple ride breezes to the ground. You can hear their sound each autumn afternoon as the crisp air cuts through the trees and hurries us along the golden sidewalks home.

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the heart feels a languid grief Laid on it for a covering, And how sleep seems a goodly thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? And how the swift beat of the brain Falters because it is in vain, In Autumn at the fall of the leaf Knowest thou not? and how the chief Of joys seems—not to suffer pain? Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the soul feels like a dried sheaf Bound up at length for harvesting, And how death seems a comely thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?