Nature, sighing long, last laments,
Dreading the need of another dying.

Flowers, chaste-vowed poverellos, now
Stern against the lust
of early night marauder.

Trees, year-weary, drop their colors,
Yield in face of stronger, fated forces.

Rain, grim air battalion, pelts
And beats the tired, dozing earth.

This the seasons’ changeless change.
This the ebbing tide of year.
This the hour before the dark.
This the flow from warm to stark.

Nature draws her shade, shuts her door.
And time flays grain on her chaffing floor.