Viii. Later Autumn

This is the year’s despair: some wind last night Utter’d too soon the irrevocable word, And the leaves heard it, and the low clouds heard; So a wan morning dawned of sterile light; Flowers drooped, or showed a startled face and white; The cattle cowered, and one disconsolate bird Chirped a weak note; last came this mist and blurred The hills, and fed upon the fields like blight. Ah, why so swift despair! There yet will be Warm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year, Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core, And late-heaped fruit, and falling hedge-berry, Blossoms in cottage-crofts, and yet, once more, A song, not less than June’s, fervent and clear.