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GSV7-ward-autumn

The black-ink decorated page is centered on its page, in portrait orientation. A decorative frame made up of bare, entwining branches surrounds a poem, entitled “Autumn.” Patches of leaves dot the branches, and at several spots along the frame, leaves fly off the branches, as if caught up in a breeze. In the top right corner of the irregular frame, the branches make a cartouche around the poem’s title. Below, the poem’s text is hand-written in rounded capital letters, each word divided by a small black dot: “The wind is driving all the clouds / Across the stormy darkening sky, / Scattering the seared and yellow leaves / Without a single sigh. / Of what avail is Spring’s hard toil / To deck the trees so brave, / When Boreas hurls the leaves away / To a soon forgotten grave? / The roses that sweet Summer loves / Have shed each petal fair, / Poor faded beauties! Hang your heads, / You once were thought so rare! / Soon cold and frost will fill the air, / And Snow will hide the ground, / And Ice the rushing river bind, / When Winter comes around.” Below, justified right, the author’s name is written: “Eleanor Vicocq Ward.”