Classic Poem

IT is autumn. Here at the edge of the marsh
A few bright leaves are turning.
Suddenly it is autumn.
Though the sun is burning
With a clear heat, yet the blue is thinned.
There is a smell of leaves on the wind.
Wild ducks fly south on a single track.

It is autumn; still you have not come back.

All the summer I have looked for you.
Now it is over. Now I have lived through
Each season, and the complete long year.
I know each form, each rhythm, each changing color
With you not here.
And I know that what moves and passes
As surely as this light wind over the bending grasses
Is gone. As certainly as this rounded apple
Ripening on the tree
Will fall — each definite form we see
Must perish and fade.

Summer is over. The yellow field,
The scarlet vines, the sweetness in the air,
Are not warmth, are not the colors of blossoming.
Summer must yield
To the dry wind, to the rain, to the frost.
The flower is withered, the wing is broken,
The beloved face forever is lost.

This I have learned. And I do not ask to see you again,
To solace the heart's hunger, to ease the pain
Of hope unfulfilled.
Where the bird has flown the nest is empty;
Where the sands are spilled
The glass is clear.
This I know. Yet I stand here
Watching the summer go down in surrender,
Vanquished and tossed,
Before the cold wind, the rain, the implacable frost,
And I stand here knowing
That nothing, nothing forever is lost.

Spring will return after the long bare winter.
Blossoms will foam
Up from the meadows again,
And again the pale root in the loam
Will fill, and the sap will rise,
And under softening skies
The earth will forget, promise, yield and remain.

There is an end to pain . . .

And there is a gift once given
No power of earth or heaven
Can take away, till our quickened mind
Is still, the throat cold and the eyes blind.
What you once were,
When you walked the earth, felt the stir
In your heart too large for the small confined
Beat of its pulse, too strong
For your incomplete song,
What you once were remains forever behind.

And I know,
Even in sudden loneliness,
When the dry, sceptical winds blow,
I know that you are not far,
Though I cannot say, it is in space, it is a star
Whereon you move,
And I cannot prove
By rule, or word, or law,
Or make the reason clear
By which I know
That you are sometimes strangely near,
So near that I can reach
Without the need of look or speech
To find you.
It is enough for me
That this can be.
I shall not try to hold you. I shall set you free
To be a part once more
Of all you were before, to move
Beyond our reach of love,
Yet present to us still, and bright
With long remembered light,
With long remembered light.