AUTUMN LEAVES.
Reading edition
I.
Who cares to think of autumn leaves in spring? When the birds sing, And buds are new, and every tree is seen Veil’d in a mist of tender gradual green; And every bole and bough Makes ready for the soft low-brooding wings Of nested ones to settle there and prove How sweet is love; Alas, who then will notice or avow Such bygone things?
II.
For, hath not spring the promise of the year? Is she not always dear To those who can look forward and forget? Her woods do nurse the violet; With cowslips fair her fragrant fields are set; And freckled butterflies Gleam in her gleaming skies; And life looks larger, as each lengthening day Withdraws the shadow, and drinks up the tear: Youth shall be youth for ever; and the gay High-hearted summer with her pomps is near.
III.
Yes; but the soul that meditates and grieves, And guards a precious past, And feels that neither joy nor loveliness can last— To her, the fervid flutter of our Spring Is like the warmth of that barbarian hall To the scared bird, whose wet and wearied wing Shot through it once, and came not back at all. Poor shrunken soul! she knows her fate too well; Too surely she can tell That each most delicate toy her fancy made, And she herself, and what she prized and knew, And all her loved ones too, Shall soon lie low, forgotten and decay’d, Like autumn leaves.