Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Richard Watson Dixon (1833–1900)

The Fall of the Leaf

RISE in their place the woods: the trees have cast,

Like earth to earth, their children: now they stand

Above the graves where lie their very last:

Each pointing with her empty hand

And mourning o’er the russet floor,

Naked and dispossessed;

The queenly sycamore,

The linden, and the aspen, and the rest.

But thou, fair birch, doubtful to laugh or weep,

Who timorously dost keep

From the sad fallen ring thy face away;

Wouldst thou look to the heavens which wander grey,

The unstilled clouds, slow mounting on their way?

They not regard thee, neither do they send

One breath to wake thy sighs, nor gently tend

Thy sorrow or thy smile to passion’s end.

Lo, there on high the unlighted moon is hung,

A cloud among the clouds: she giveth pledge,

Which none from hope debars,

Of hours that shall the naked boughs re-fledge

In seasons high: her drifted train among

Musing she leads the silent song,

Grave mistress of white clouds, as lucid queen of stars.