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Augusta Davies Webster - Autumn’s Warnings
Work rating: Low

SOFT voices of the woods, that make
    The summer air a harmony,
Winged whispers through the leaves where wake
    Long wind-wafts dying in a sigh,
Replies of birds from brake to brake,
    Plash of the runnel on its stones,
Soft voices, sweet for summer`s sake,
    There is a word in all your tones,
A word that not till now ye spake,
"Goodbye, goodbye."

And yet, see, dearest, overhead
    The branches bar a sultry sky,
No earliest fleck of tanned or red
    `Mid all the leafage far and nigh,
And, with their serried curves outspread,
    The fresh green fern-fronds know no frost.
Nought gone; but still some grace is dead:
    Nought changed; but still some hope is lost:
Listen, and every voice has said
"Goodbye, goodbye."

We shall not see the summer wane,
    But, with a start of memory,
When the long chills have come again,
    Awake and know that it did die:
So slowest loss is sudden pain;
    We have not known till all is o`er;
`Tis summer till the autumn`s rain.
    Yet has there stolen long before
That sadness through some sweetest strain
"Goodbye, goodbye."

Ah, love, hear all the thought that grew;
    Mock it away; I`ll mock it, I:
Summer, and I sit here with you,
    Your great eyes smiling tenderly,
Your silence wooing me to woo,
    A meaning in your lightest word
As though love made it something new—
    And what if all the while I heard
The autumn whisper sighing through
"Goodbye, goodbye"?
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