565. Autumn. Walter Savage Landor. The Oxford Book of English Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Walter Savage Landor. 1775–1864

565. Autumn

MILD is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

I wait its close, I court its gloom,	5
But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb
The tear that would have soothed it all.