  Poor falling leaves! I have watched you Fading slowly, with heavy heart, And as you patter around me, Vain tears to my tired eyes start. Drearily the rain is falling, And my soul is heavy with pain; O winds, thy desolate sobbing Hath wakened old dreams again! Short-lived, but ah! how lovely Were the peaceful summer hours! Sweet golden days in the wildwood, Reposing ’mid fairest bowers. The skies were grand in their beauty, And the earth was never more fair; The hills and vales filled with rapture, Caressed by the perfumed air. As a child of nature I revelled By hillside, cool streamlet, and sea; Tender and kind were the voices That whispered in love unto me Of a time that had no seeming, When life was all joyous and gay, And the years, with roses laden, Passed soon like a dream away. I knew when the autumn shrouded The world in a strange, sad veil, And heard in the lonely woodland The hollow, mysterious wail Of the wind in sad meanderings By forsaken bower and stream, Searching out the dim recesses Where the summer had dwelt supreme. Whence cometh these weird, sad longings? Ah! wherefore this dreary pain? I’m tired as a weary child, And would rest and forget again; But the drip of the weeping rain, And the moan of waves on the shore, And the pitiful falling leaves May cease in the heart nevermore. |
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