Spent autumn wanes; the leaf
Forsakes the vine, as from her coronal
The gems might fall,
Forgot by some mad empress in her grief.

Now, from the sycamores,
A ruinous and crumpled bronze is cast;
Grown sere at last,
The reeds lie broken on the river-shores.

Now, from the outland peaks,
The ghostly snows crawl downward on the blue;
Gone forth anew,
For huger suns the southering autumn seeks.

Decembral stars return
In long blue twilights to the eastern hill;
But, lost and still,
In high ravines her flameless embers burn.

Bleak with the winter's breath,
A wind comes down; fantastic skeletons
Of steel and bronze,
Creak the cold willows in a dance of death.