NOW comes an end to quiet autumn days
    And to frail loveliness. In the still night
Cold death has crept along the garden ways
    To wrap at last about each blossom bright
        Its funeral garment white.
And where a myriad cruel prisms blaze,
Ironically now the sun’s kind rays
    Shine but to blast and blight.

One hour of beauty on this shining morn—
    White, mocking beauty while the frost rime clings.
Then bud and blossom, fashioned to adorn
    The earth, are but a heap of blackened things,
        All loveliness takes wings . . . 
And yet, not all! Still in a land forlorn,
Most valiantly by a glowing thorn,
    A grey thrush sweetly sings.