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The Mourners
'Thus I first saw her: brooding secretly,
Framed like a maid within a trysting gate
Of shadows; like a hidden memory
Which knows its power to hurt, and thus can wait.
A golden melancholy brushed her face,
As she tore petals from an old regret
Of some long-withered blossom. Oh, the chase
Of time had left her somehow in his debt.
Like a tired traveller, I stopped to ask
Her charity; but slowly leaf by leaf
She stripped her flower. Hers was the woman's task
To sit in mourning, mine to fly from grief.
LADY OF AUTUMN
Lady of Autumn, in your cold repose
Dreaming among the brown-leaved empty vines
With sable robe drawn close, the night wind blows,
And Winter with his icy hand prefines
Your lease on this bright garden of wild youth.
Soon you will nod by the dry sticks of age.