I in the autumn of my days
Stand by a place of tears,
And hear the unborn children weep
Within the unborn years;
And feel how all God's sorrow must
Go wailing on until
Man's autumn, too, is past, and he
May winter from all ill.
* * * * *
A pale light in the fading wood,
The sob of dying leaves -
A lorn bird lying in the dusk
Of life that wakes and grieves!
O mournful heart whose love is dust,
In the decaying wood
Death's deepening mystery will cling
Round thee like solitude.