Autumn: A Dirge

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

THE WARM sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,

The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,

And the year

On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, months, come away,

From November to May,

In your saddest array;

Follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,

The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone

To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away,

Put on white, black, and gray;

Let your light sisters play—

Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.