Autumn

 

Petie Barre

 

Autumn (Excerpt)

by Thomas Hood

Art by Omar Rayyan

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,

The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,

And honey bees have stored

The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;

The swallows all have wing'd across the main;

But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,

And sighs her tearful spells

Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.

Alone, alone,

Upon a mossy stone,

She sits and reckons up the dead and gone

With the last leaves for a love-rosary,

Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,

Like a dim picture of the drownèd past

In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away,

Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last

Into that distance, gray upon the gray.