Autumn In Cornwall

The year lies fallen and faded     On cliffs by clouds invaded,     With tongues of storms upbraided,     With wrath of waves bedinned;     And inland, wild with warning,     As in deaf ears or scorning,     The clarion even and morning     Rings of the south-west wind.          The wild bents wane and wither     In blasts whose breath bows hither     Their grey-grown heads and thither,     Unblest of rain or sun;     The pale fierce heavens are crowded     With shapes like dreams beclouded,     As though the old year enshrouded     Lay, long ere life were done.          Full-charged with oldworld wonders,     From dusk Tintagel thunders     A note that smites and sunders     The hard frore fields of air;     A trumpet stormier-sounded     Than once from lists rebounded     When strong men sense-confounded     Fell thick in tourney there.          From scarce a duskier dwelling     Such notes of wail rose welling     Through the outer darkness, telling     In the awful singer's ears     What souls the darkness covers,     What love-lost souls of lovers,     Whose cry still hangs and hovers     In each man's born that hears.          For there by Hector's brother     And yet some thousand other     He that had grief to mother     Passed pale from Dante's sight;     With one fast linked as fearless,     Perchance, there only tearless;     Iseult and Tristram, peerless     And perfect queen and knight.          A shrill-winged sound comes flying     North, as of wild souls crying     The cry of things undying,     That know what life must be;     Or as the old year's heart, stricken     Too sore for hope to quicken     By thoughts like thorns that thicken,     Broke, breaking with the sea.