The earnest pines are of the sober North.
Cold twilights find them sombre as themselves,
And the gold sun that down the red West delves
Like broken-lanced knights doth set them forth.

There is among them only Autumn cheer,
A mournful sweetness — yet they do not change,
And their laced limbs are never bare and strange
Under the swift reprisals of the year.

If constancy brings melancholy joy,
This then is why these forests reach my heart
With their deep changeless tones, why tears do start
To-night when I behold their brave deploy.

Their constancy brings feelings linked to those
The soul brought here, and keeps beyond life's close.