IN Autumn, as the year comes round,
(The seasons fall without a sound),
By slow and stealth an ashen hue
Comes on the green, comes on the blue.

The sticks I burned beneath a larch
The first bright day of tawny March,
Gave out their heat and fell away
Successive into rose and gray.

Thus covertly, and term by term,
Like as the year, I grow infirm;
Thus spend my substance like the fire,
And like the last cold ash expire.