The End Of Summer

THE rose, that wrote its message on the noon's Bright manuscript, has turned her perfumed face Towards Fall, and waits, heart-heavy, for the moon's Pale flower to take her place. With eyes distraught, and dark disheveled hair, The Season dons a tattered cloak of storm And waits with Night that, darkly, seems to share Her trouble and alarm. It is the close of summer. In the sky The sunset lit a fire of drift and sat Watching the last Day, robed in empire, die Upon the burning ghat. The first leaf crimsons and the last rose falls, And Night goes stalking on, her cloak of rain Dripping, and followed through her haunted halls By all Death's phantom train. The sorrow of the Earth and all that dies, And all that suffers, in her breast she bears; Outside the House of Life she stops and cries The burden of her cares. Then on the window knocks with crooked hands, Her tree-like arms to Heaven wildly-hurled: Love hears her crying, 'Who then understands? — Has God forgot the world?'