SONG IN THE KEY OF AUTUMN
by Scudder Middleton
(originally published in the November 1919 issue of Century magazine)
We are walking with the month
To a quiet place.
See, only here and there the gentians stand!
To-night the homing loon
Will fly across the moon,
Over the tired land.
We were the idlers and the sowers,
The watchers in the sun,
The harvesters who laid away the grain.
Now there's a sign in every vacant tree,
Now there's a hint in every stubble field,
Something we must not forget
When the blossoms fly again.
Give me your hand!
There were too many promises in June.
Human-tinted buds of spring
Told only half the truth.
The withering leaf beneath our feet,
That wrinkled apple overhead,
Say more than vital boughs have said
When we went walking
In this growing place.
There is something in this hour
More honest than a flower
Or laughter from a sunny face.
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