[from Collected Works, T.E.Brown]

AN AUTUMN TRINKET

WHY does she burn
These colours on my soul—where’er I turn,
Splashes of flame and pyramids of fire
That fill me with insatiate desire,
Making me yearn
For that which, with its own intensity
Death-poisoned, hastens not to be?

Even so, even so
It is—the brightest and the dearest go:
The thrift of our great Mother calling back
Her forces, that the Spring may have no lack
Of customed show.
Not less to us the things that most we cherish
Fade from our eyes, and perish, perish, perish!