Winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep.
Tantarrara! the joyous Book of Spring
Lies open, writ in blossoms.
No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,
corpse-gazing, tears, black raiment, graveyard grimness.
Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,
yours still, you mine.
Remember all the best of our past moments,
and forget the rest;
and so to where I wait, come gently on.
Oh, bring again my heart's content,
Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!
Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a Summer's day;
Sweet Love is dead.
Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men.
Mary kept the belt of love, and oh, but she was gay!
She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.
Out of the city, far away
With spring to-day!
Where copses tufted with primrose
Give me repose,
Wood-sorrel and wild violet
Soothe my soul's fret.
Autumn's the mellow time.
