One Day in Autumn / David Morton

One Day in Autumn

With all our going through this golden weather,
    Where leaves have littered every forest way,
If there be lovers, they should be together:
    For this is golden . . . but the end is grey.
Beyond this shimmer where the bright leaves fall,
    Behind this haze of silver shot with gold,
There is a greyness waiting for it all,—
    A little longer . . . and the world is old.

And never loneliness grew more and more,
    As this that haunts these late October days,
With smoky twilights gathering at the door,
    With grey mist clouding on familiar ways . . .
And well for him who has another near,
When fires are lighted for the dying year.

~~
David Morton (1886-1957)
from Ships in Harbour, and other poems, 1921

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

David Morton biography