14 November 2023

Amends.

Metcalf, November Mist, 1922


NOVEMBER

Each sapless leaf that lingers here
Where bare woods mourn
Shall soon upon Wind’s silvery bier
Be gravewards borne.

The bees have left our honey-bowers,
The birds are fled;
And ’neath the blight of frost our flowers
Have fallen—dead!

Yon meadow now, where grass grew green,
No grazing yields:
No bells are heard, no flocks are seen
In far, fenced fields.

Where children played till all the ground
Was wet with dew,
Autumn, to-day, with threatening sound
Snow trumpets blew.

Fear not November’s challenge bold—
We’ve books and friends;
And hearths that never can grow cold:
These make amends!

Alexander Louis Fraser

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