November / Ethelwyn Wetherald

November

The old year’s withered face is here again,
     The twilight look, the look of reverie,
     The backward gazing eyes that seem to see
The full-leaved robin-haunted June remain
Through devastating wind and ruinous rain;
     A form that moves a little wearily,
     As one who treads the path of memory
Beneath a long year’s load of stress and stain.

Good-night! good-night! the dews are thick and damp,
     Yet still she babbles on, as loath to go,
          Of apple-buds and blooms that used to be,
Till Indian Summer brings the bedside lamp,
     And underneath a covering of snow 

          She dreams again of April ecstasy.

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from Tangled in Stars: Poems, 1902

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

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography