THE AUTUMN WOODS
The grave of desolation
1 I am weary
Of all things; let me sleep my life away!
The breast 01 Fate is pregnant with despair
Got on her by the piercing shaft of Time.
Ah
!
Unborn child of Fate and Time, I am weary
Of them that gave thee birth.
Shall I love thee?
O darling, wilt thou come to me in the silence,
Saying : I hear the mystery 01 Time,
And the secret of Fate? I know not yet, but surely
Thou shalt know of the Rose, the Rose, the Rose of the
world ;
With thee shall I bear the chalice of blood-tipped lilies,
The chalice of red, sweet lilies under the moon ?
But now there is no moon, nor any sun;
The world's gray noon only is for thee and me;
There is no sound in the nerveless silences
Of the fading world; there is a quiver of light
On the river of life; we are unwed, my Rose,
Nor knoweth each the other ; we are undone,
My Rose, my secret Rose, my unknown Rose!
And still the Autumn woods are rustling dumbly
With sodden leaves made brown by wind and rain ;
And the satyrs are fled under the earth to hide
From the sunless world, and the nymphs are faded to air,
To be reborn in the sun—light: there is no morejoy,
For mournfulness is fallen on the world,
And decadence and decay and the odour 01 eld.
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