All day the heavy skies have lowered,

Long beaten by autumnal rain;

The lilac's withered leaves lie showered

Where little rain-pools star the plain;

All things that for a season flowered

Sink back to earth again.

Strange, then, that with the year's decrease

And out of gathering dusk you rise

Seeking love's ultimate surcease,

Phantom, whose memory-haunted eyes

Know that there never can be peace

Hoped-for, till memory dies.

In vain where these dead leaves lie strown

Where all things, bending earthward, fail,

Like a young spirit newly flown,

Flower-fragile, blossom-like and pale,

You search; and must fly back, a blown

Rose leaf on the cold gale.

You might have rested but for this:

That love's intense flame burning through

The shuddering body with a kiss

Woke in the prisoned spirit, too,

So keen an ecstasy of bliss

As could, for all they made amiss,

Nor life nor death undo.