Along the waste, a great way off, the pines,
Like tall slim priests of storm, stand up and bar
The low long strip of dolorous red that lines
The under west, where wet winds moan afar.
The cornfields all are brown, and brown the meadows
With the blown leaves’ wind-heaped traceries,
And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows,
And bear no bloom for bees.
As slowly earthward leaf by red leaf slips,
The sad leaves rustle in chill misery,
A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips,
That move and murmur incoherently;
As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing,
With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door,
So many low soft masses for the dying
Sweet leaves that live no more.
Here I will sit upon this naked stone,
Draw my coat closer with my numbed hands,
And hear the ferns sigh, and the wet woods moan,
And send my heart out to the ashen lands;
And I will ask myself what golden madness,
What balmed breaths of dreamland spicery,
What visions of soft laughter and light sadness
Were sweet last month to me.
The dry dead leaves flit by with thin weird tunes,
Like failing murmurs of some conquered creed,
Graven in mystic markings with strange runes,
That none but stars and biting winds may read;
Here I will wait a little; I am weary,
Not torn with pain of any lurid hue,
But only still and very gray and dreary,
Sweet sombre lands, like you.
(Archibald Lampman)
More Poetry from Archibald Lampman:
Archibald Lampman Poems based on Topics: Sadness, Pain, Death & Dying, Madness- The Monk (Archibald Lampman Poems)
- Storm (Archibald Lampman Poems)
- Winter-Store (Archibald Lampman Poems)
- At the Long Sault: May, 1660 (Archibald Lampman Poems)
- The City at the End of Things (Archibald Lampman Poems)
- Easter Eve (Archibald Lampman Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Sadness Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Pain Poems, Madness PoemsBased on Keywords: traceries, markings, balmed, spicery, incoherently, wind-heaped
- The Wild Knight (Gilbert Keith Chesterton Poems)
- Mogg Megone - Part I. (John Greenleaf Whittier Poems)
- Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos. - Canto I. (Matthew Prior Poems)
- Palestine; A Prize Poem, Recited In The Theatre, Oxford (Reginald Heber Poems)
- The Island: Canto IV. (Lord George Gordon Byron Poems)