Classic Poem

Now Autumn, with wild grapes in her hair,
And plaited red leaves for a bodice,
Danced down the land, laughing in the gale.

The mad dance of death began:
The going out in glory …

Now the air tasted of sharp wild things,
And there was a game-flavour in the lusty Earth.

It was the time of dancing, and of wine, and of red living:
The forests staggered, drunkenly, shouting wine-songs …

And the youth, blown out of sleep by a mighty morning,
Tasted the pine-strong air of the heights,
In a rain-rinsed brilliance of the sun among wild cloud-shadows,
And took hold on life, and went with springing steps up the heights. . . .

And he came to a slope of rock and stunted balsams,
Wild, inaccessible, a primal spot:
And living gusts of the lightning air swept down it
Into the dark loud forest beneath.