The Year Hath Reached Its Afternoon
The laughing flights of song are still
That charmed the springtide air;
Down rivulet and grassy rill
No wayward perfumes fare;
Upon her throne Queen August lies
With languor in her dreamful eyes.
The idle clouds that stray the blue
Their mission now forget;
A blended note the wood-doves coo
Of passion and regret;
The sparrows flute a faded tune;
The year hath reached its afternoon.
The cricket clears his dusty throat
To sing an eerie strain;
And as he pipes with rusty note
Of beauty soon to wane,
The red rose trembles on the tree
With prescience of the fate to be.
Samuel Minturn Peck (1854-1938)
from Through the Year with the Poets, 1886
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter (1660–1711), Allegory of Autumn (detail), Wikimedia Commons.
Outstanding selection..!
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