AUTUMN
by: George Sterling (1869-1926)
 OW droops
the troubled year
- And now her tiny sunset stains the leaf.
- A holy fear,
- A rapt, elusive grief,
- Make imminent the swift, exalting tear.
-
- The long wind's weary sigh--
- Knowest, O listener! for what it wakes?
- Adown the sky
- What star of Time forsakes
- Her pinnacle? What dream and dreamer die?
-
- A presence half-divine
- Stands at the threshold, ready to depart
- Without a sign.
- Now seems the world's deep heart
- About to break. What sorrow stirs in mine?
-
- A mist of twilight rain
- Hides now the orange edges of the day.
- In vain, in vain
- We labor that thou stay,
- Beauty who wast, and shalt not be again!
|
"Autumn" is reprinted
from The House of Orchids and Other Poems. George Sterling.
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1911. |
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POEMS BY GEORGE STERLING |
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