THE FALL OF THE LEAVES[1]
(From the French of Millevoye)
Autumn had strewn on field and vale
The dead leaves from the forest reft:
Naked the mournful groves were left,
And silent was the nightingale.
Oppressed with melancholy thought
An invalid, in years but young,
But by long suffering unstrung,
The wood beloved in boyhood sought.
Dear wood, he said, adieu! adieu!
Like me you mourn your hapless fate;
Forlorn and all disconsolate,
In yours my own sad doom I view.
A messenger of final doom
Each leaf in falling seems to say,
Soon thou like us shalt pass away.
Thy fate like ours is steeped in gloom:
Around thee dose the shades of death;
Wanner than autumn's wannest leaf
Soon must thou yield thy latest breath,—
No respite hope, however brief.
Yes! I must die! my spring has fled
Long ere its time, and winter's frost
Withers me with its icy breath,
And warns me that all hope is lost
Laid low by unrelenting death,
Sweet flowers and herbs my corse shall deck,
But ah! my sad and frustrate life
Fruitage of deeds must ever lack.
Descend, ye leaves ephemeral,
And cover me as I am dying,
Let not my mother's vision fall
Where breathless, motionless, I'm lying:
But if my love comes hither, when
Fate can inflict no further sorrow,
To weep my hapless lot—oh! then
Some comfort shall my spirit borrow.
No more he said, but thence departed,
His wanderings there for ever o'er.
When from the tree the last leaf started
Destiny tortured him no more.
Beneath an oak his corse was laid;
But she whom he had loved so dearly
Came not the silence to invade
Which reigned about his grave austerely;
Save when the shepherd went his round
The solitude was void of sound.
1895
- ↑ "Millevoy's 'Chute des Feuilles' has been called not unhappily 'La Marseillaise des Mélancholiques.' His other poetical work is never likely to be generally read."—George Saintsbury.