Autumn’s Warnings

SOFT voices of the woods, that make The summer air a harmony, Winged whispers through the leaves where wake Long wind-wafts dying in a sigh, Replies of birds from brake to brake, Plash of the runnel on its stones, Soft voices, sweet for summer's sake, There is a word in all your tones, A word that not till now ye spake, 'Goodbye, goodbye.' And yet, see, dearest, overhead The branches bar a sultry sky, No earliest fleck of tanned or red 'Mid all the leafage far and nigh, And, with their serried curves outspread, The fresh green fern-fronds know no frost. Nought gone; but still some grace is dead: Nought changed; but still some hope is lost: Listen, and every voice has said 'Goodbye, goodbye.' We shall not see the summer wane, But, with a start of memory, When the long chills have come again, Awake and know that it did die: So slowest loss is sudden pain; We have not known till all is o'er; 'Tis summer till the autumn's rain. Yet has there stolen long before That sadness through some sweetest strain 'Goodbye, goodbye.' Ah, love, hear all the thought that grew; Mock it away; I'll mock it, I: Summer, and I sit here with you, Your great eyes smiling tenderly, Your silence wooing me to woo, A meaning in your lightest word As though love made it something new— And what if all the while I heard The autumn whisper sighing through 'Goodbye, goodbye'?