Sometimes In The Middle Autumn Days

Sometimes in the middle autumn days, The windless days when the swallows have flown, And the sere elms brood in the mist, Each tree a being, rapt, alone, I know, not as in barren thought, But wordlessly, as the bones know, What quenching of my brain, what numbness, Wait in the dark grave where I go. And I see the people thronging the street, The death-marked people, they and I Goalless, rootless, like leaves drifting, Blind to the earth and to the sky; Nothing believing, nothing loving, Not in joy nor in pain, not heeding the stream Of precious life that flows within us, But fighting, toiling as in a dream. So shall we in the rout of life Some thought, some faith, some meaning save, And speak it once before we go In silence to the silent grave...