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Time and Place

Autumn

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Autumn

page 25

Autumn Roses

The roses of Autumn are less numerous
Than the accoutrement of valiant Spring,
But they are more beautiful, and far more precious,
Each several flower presents itself a perfect thing.
They are more lasting, their colour is more lustrous,
With a more intimate and insistent voice
Their pungent scent speaks …What is meant to us
By these perfect, departing roses? The joys
Adorning the declension of life’s afternoon,
Infrequent, rarer, to be remitted soon,
Are so much the fairer, so much the dearer to us,
Declaring the ineffable vision to be nearer to us.
Their perfume is the incense of jubilee
For what the deaf shall hear soon, and the blind see.

page 26

Showers of Leaves

April is passing; the tired trees are casting their harness
down, here in the vale where the east wind is bated
  and fans but faintly the rays of the waning sun.

A soft susurration of small leaves in dessication, a rustling,
a hushed song is breathed here where the wind stirs them;
  accomplished, accomplished is their ministration, their service is done.

Back, back, bright ornaments, to earth’s breast, the maternal
source, whence the vernal sap sprang in young September,
  when of her life, and the sun’s, and the breeze’s, your substance was spun.

Back to the mattamore, brief golden treasure; stormtarnished
frail coinage, to the mint again; scattered for largesse
  as summer’s train to the distance recedes, her regency run.

A light leaf’s kiss feathers my cheek as it flutters
restwards. Meekly the flitting leaves whisper: Dimittis.
  Requiescat, requiescat, sighs the dying wind’s salutation.

Ah! might I as peacefully, completion serenely accepting,
its office fulfilled, as freely put off this integument,
  and get me hence, mine eyes having seen salvation.

page 27

By Burke’s Pass

Nature, earth’s angel, man’s antagonist,
The stern antagonist from whom he wrests his bread,
Long heretofore with vast magnificence
Did carve this scene, prepare the arena, spread
Bronze tussocked terraces before precipitous
Great purple alps, loose glacier-shed
Fierce-laughing streams in circuitous riverbed.

Lo, man to the assault! In part victorious,
His pretty trophies sets he up to amend
The natural scene. The corn-stacks aureate,
Wearing their weights like amulets, the autumn blend
Of orange-spattered poplars, with the various
Gilt willows are his signet. Now, vainglorious,
He calls the expanse a home and awful Nature, friend.

The austere angel smiles on man’s predicament,
Foregoes awhile advantage, and abates his blows;
Soft mein assumes of kindly ministrant;
As on this ending day in genial radiance glows
The whole amphitheatre, stark antinomy
Of wild and won annulled; and, new-companioned foes,
Beneath the hostile heights homestead and farm repose.

Homestead? Nay, halting-place, accommodation
Achieved… Did not that sombre regimented band
Of firs, those gravestones, publish man’s condition?
For night, parental night, shall soon with gentle hand
Suspend her folding arras, resume domination;
Nature, to rest dismissed by a most high command,
Shortly roll up this planetary decoration,
Man having passed darkly onwards to an unknown land.

page 28

Autumn Afternoon

On a small hillock, contented, contented,
Beside a low valley, I took my repose,
One day in mid-May, wearing on into winter,
While the calm afternoon drew down to its close.

And I saw that the harvest was over, was over,
The scything and binding of corn and of hay;
And the latter-day harvest of swarthy potatoes,
The spaded, dark harvest was now under way.

As in a small mirror, a minishing mirror,
An old, curving mirror that hung in our home,
I saw the band moving, and bending, and lifting,
As they filled up the sacks and turned up the loam.

The lorry attending, the long motor-lorry,
Loading up, seemed to swim on invisible keel;
No sound of its labours came over the furrows,
No grind of an engine, no round of a wheel;

No sound from the distance, so clear so pellucid,
So near seemed the bevy of men and of boys,
With eye and with ear so soothed and deluded,
I fancied a realm that had never known noise!

The sheep in their pasture, half lost in the tussock,
On the hillside above me or far on the plains
(Like a stage army that seems to be passing,
And seems to be moving, but constant remains)

Fretted the herbage, and nibbled the grasses,
Intent on their pasture, so stolid, so tame;
All tame and all tallied, all followed the foremost,
And rippled the landscape, but kept it the same.
page 29 And as the light lowered, unsullied and glowing,
It threw a last spell before it should pale,
A magical mesh of golden and coralline
Mist over hill and gully and dale.

It enveloped the vale; the long lilac shadows
Fell soft as the folds of an old, faded gown;
All silken the tussock, all velvet the fallow,
As the lustre grew brighter, before it died down.

It seemed as if Autumn, red-cloaked for her journey,
Autumn, kind Autumn, had paused for a while;
Had paused at her parting, remembered the valley,
Looked over her shoulder, and and thrown us a smile.

It lit up the boughs, it illumined the branches
Of a cluster of trees, so placed and displayed—
A Lombardy poplar, and two aspen poplars,
And a dark purple willow embraced in their shade—

So placed and disposed, as if for an artist,
As if for a master to trace and portray
The design of their limbs, the spring of their arches,
In glowing repose at the close of the day.

All leafless the willows, all naked the columnar
Lombardy poplar, but aspens wore, high
On their whispering crests, a glittering circlet,
Still yellow, bright yellow, against the blue sky.

Then the clear light faded, so slowly, so sadly,
As dear Autumn’s smile passed into a sigh;
The fields were forsaken, the sere poplars shuddered,
As the flotten leaves muttered ‘So now we must die!’

page 30

And coming that evening, cold evening, late evening,
And coming to compline, dismissing the day;
And conning life’s lesson, to fathom the meaning,
The exquisite pleasures adorning the way,

New every morning, the various treasure
Measured again, took up all my mind;
The tokens of kindness, the cup in the cornsack,
The corn out of Egypt, the blessing assigned,

The shining surprises, the rose in the desert,
Oh, naught but the mercy, the turning again,
Naught but remembrance of kindness and mercy
Supplying fresh manna the soul to sustain,

New wine distilled, yea, filling the cup full,
Secret bread, hid manna, my thoughts did employ—
And how a red sallow, and two sorts of poplar,
Upsprung in a valley, had wrought me such joy!

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