Classic Poem

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.