NOVEMBER SUNSHINE

The Database of Ornament

        THE warm year fled ere thy sense hath caught her:
            Only the wind in a misty plain,
        And the beautiful brief November sunshine
        Gleaming on levels of pale grey water
            And roadways wet with November rain.

        In the rank red groves despoiled and dreary,
            A wan woman peers thro’ the shadows ahead,
        Seeming to seek in the sunset beyond them,
        With tear-dimmed eyes grown wretched and weary,
            The wraith of a golden hope, long dead.

        Dead hope! Dost thou its sweet remember—
            Thou too, with a sigh that is spent in vain ;
        And thy heart like a Wanderer pale and lonely
        Watching the brief bright sun of November
            Sink, and the slow sweet Autumn wane?

                                     HUGO LAUBACH