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Autumn

O saddest of sad thoughts that beauty dies!
To think of leafless trees and gardens bare,
With not a butterfly to grace the air
Nor busy bee above the clovers rise!
Autumn with such sad thoughts my being fills,
Gazing on Thee and Thy maturity.
What cheerfulness hast Thou to give?
What thrills
Of ecstacy, when all around I see
Death slowly creeping in His stealthy way
Thro' valleys where the wild birds lately sang,
In gardens' niches where the insects play,
In orchards where the thrushes sing not now?
Autumn! already do I see the fang
Of frosty Winter grip Thy every bough.

—Samuel Hulme Bridgford
1928