Part 4 (1/2)

We hear the same wind, they and I, Under the dark autumnal sky; It blows strange music through their dreams.

Keenly it blows through mine, Singing their epitaph.

Tours, 1918

X

The green ca.n.a.l is mottled with falling leaves, Yellow leaves, fluttering silently; A whirling gust ripples the woods, and heaves The stricken branches with a sigh, Then all is still again.

Unmoving, the green waterway receives Ghosts of the dying forest to its breast; Loneliness...quiet...not a wing has stirred In the cold glades; no fish has leaped away From the heavy waters; not a drop of rain Distils from the pervading mist.

Sluggishly out of the west A grey ca.n.a.l-boat glides, half-seen, unheard; The sweating horses on the towpath sway Backward and forward in a rhythmic strain; It pa.s.ses by, a dream within a dream, Down the dark corridor of leaning boughs, Down the long waterways of endless fall.

A s.h.i.+ver stirs the woods; a fitful gleam Of sun gilds the sky's overhanging brows; Then shadowy silence, and the yellow stream Of dead leaves dropping to the green ca.n.a.l.

Moret-sur-Loing, 1918

XI

They who have gone down the hill are far away; From the still valleys I can hear them call; Their distant laughter faintly floats Through the unmoving air and back to me.

I am alone with the declining day And the declining forest where the notes Of all the happy minstrelsy, Birds and leaf-music and the rest, Sink separately in the hush of fall.

The sun and clouds conflicting in the west Swirl into smoky light together and fade Under the unbroken shadow; Under the shadowed peace that is the night; Under the night's great quietude of shade.

The sheep below me in the meadow Seem drifting on the haze, serene and white, Pale pastured dreams, unearthly herds that roam Where the dead reign and phantoms make their home.

They also pa.s.s, even as the clear ring Of the sad Angelus through the vales echoing.

Montigny, 1918

XII

Where two roads meet amid the wood, There stands a white sepulchral rood, Beneath whose shadow, wayfarers Would pause to offer up their prayers.

There is no house for miles around, No sound of beast, no human sound, Only the trees like sombre dreams From whose bare boughs the water drips; And the pale memory of death.

The haze hangs heavy without breath, It hangs so heavy that it seems To hold a silent finger to its lips.

In after years the spectral cross Will be quite overgrown with moss, And wayfarers will go their way Nor stop to meditate and pray.

The spring will nest in all the trees Unblighted by the memories Of autumn and the G.o.d of pain.

The leaves will whisper in the sun, Life will crown death with snowy flowers, Long hence...but now the autumn lowers, The sky breaks into gusts of rain, Turn thee to sleep, the day is nearly done.

Forest of Fontainebleau, 1918

XIII

The boy is late tonight binding his sheaves, The twilight of these autumn eyes Falls early now and chill.

The murky sun has set An hour ago behind the overhanging hill.

Great piles of fallen leaves Smoulder in every street And through the columned smoke a scarlet jet Of flame darts out and disappears.

The boy leans motionless upon his staff, With all the sorrows of his fifteen years Gazing out of his eyes into the fall, A memory ineffable and sweet Half tinged with voiceless pa.s.sion, half Plaintive with sad imaginings that drift Like echoes of far-off autumnal bells.