The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1948
An Eccentric Autumn
An Eccentric Autumn
I
Leaves are a largess granted each year
By the god of seasons, hid and perpetual
Over the rain-clouds and under the warm earth,
Puissant in frost and fire, slayer and saviour.
Harry Borrer Kirk John Barraud
Leaves are also a veil dropped at this time
By a kindly god over the fretful
Face of old age, making the mourner seem
Beautiful and bountiful, young out of season.
So now are given in due time, lavishly,
Yellow for a gentle grief, and red for pain,
To mask the solitude of death in clothes
As some would dress a body, sad and splendid.
So with the season we mourn. But we
Are also the body thus committed in beauty
To the dark earth where winter cannot touch
Our peace, and where our death is kind.
II
Sometimes in autumn I have watched the leaves
Settle in street and gateway, make each door and path
A place where feet can walk in majesty and say,
In passing by we've walked the way of grief
And found all beauty mingled in the season.
And as the leaves have drifted slowly down
I've seen them swell into a rolling cloud
And drown the city under me in colour:
Render all passion forfeit in that place
And smother up the breath of urgency.
And then autumnal city, clad in grace
Before this fugitive in places where
A dull grey litter was no cloak of peace
And dressed not joy nor grief, for neither life
Nor death was here triumphant: city,
Then would you not know oneness and devotion
Though it were your final state, and even
While death filled your corners, could you not say,
Peace and salvation are the gifts sent from
The throne of grace uplifted in my midst.