November In Georgia (poetry)

1899

By Francis Barine

Is this November—late November, too?
The woods have scarce a bough stripped wholly bare;
And soft and clear and kindly is the air,
And Summer's skies are not more deeply blue.
No richer roses in her garden grew,
Nor are these her "Good-by," — these roses rare:
The year has many roses yet to wear
Ere Winter comes, even here to claim his due.
Here Summer lingers — all the garden-ways
Are fragrant still. The bamboo's tangled green
Is mirrored where the warm brown water shines.
The distant hills are unobscured by haze —
Across a league of rolling land between
How clear the sky-line rampart of tall pines!

Yet there is something in the air to-day —
What is it? — sighing Summer's day is done,
Though Psyche float and circle in the sun,
And wayside-weed and garden-bed be gay.
Here waves the cotton-sedge, grown ghostly-gray—
There stretch the withered corn-fields. One by one
Queen Summer's brilliant courtiers vanish — none,
Except the roses, to the end will stay.
It is as if, arrested, Summer stood —
A fugitive queen, yet royal — with raised hand
Commanding silence, wherefore not a breath
Breaks the deep stillness of the waiting wood,
While with sad eyes she looks across the land
For his approach whose coming is her death.

— Youth's Companion.