In November.

No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine,     No windy white but low and sodden gray,     That holds the melancholy skies and kills     The wild song and the wild bird; yet, ai me!     Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,     Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!     Thy long thick leaves deep, deep about my feet,     Slow, weary feet that halt or falter on;     Thy long, sweet, reddened leaves that burn and die     With silent fever of the sickened wold.     I love to hear in all thy windy coigns,     Rain-wet and choked with bleached and rotting weeds,     The baby-babble of the many leaves,     That, fallen on barren ways, like fallen hopes     Once held so high on all the Summer's heart     Of strong majestic trees, now come to such,     Would fainly gossip in hushed undertones, -     Sad weak yet sweet as natures that have known     True tears and hot in bleak remorseless days, -     Of all their whilom glory vanished so.