The Death of Summer.
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For mark! how frail is their tenure, As linked with tendril and stem;Soon the death-wind will sever, and wide Over the wood scatter them.What is the butterfly saying, As tangled now in the vine,She flutters her frail gauzy wings, Vainly wooing the pale sun-shine?
Leaf, and rill, and forest gloom, All echo one song to me;They say, "The summer is dying, And buried for ever to be."That life's but a passing shadow, Or the mist of early day;Or dying summer that we mourn, With her dead leaves blown away.
Bagni di Lucca, 1859.
