The Hound

Some are sick for Spring and warm winds blowing Over close-sheathed buds and a patch of old snow, With the early arc-lamps delicately bowing Across thin sunshine that hesitates to go. But it’s not for any April promises I sicken, Though their stammering sweetness be a plucked string; My mind is bent toward Autumn, I am shaken More by her denials than by all the hopes of Spring. The curt cold days, the blue and windy weather, The smoke of burning brushwood keener than a frost, An orchard full of odors night is wise to gather, The fur-collared stubble where the flower is lost. A clear green sunset and a pale moon showing, A sense of dawning ends, like the light in the sky. Autumn is a hound that shrills, my heart is for her gnawing, The quarry goes to Autumn, let Spring die.