Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN THE FADING YEAR, by RAY CLARKE ROSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE FADING YEAR, by                    
First Line: The goldenrod is nodding to the asters by the road
Last Line: Making lives leaf out in kindness as the fruitful days proceed.
Subject(s): Nature; Time


The goldenrod is nodding to the asters by the road.
Out across the sandy reaches where the grass is flaming up
Into orange-yellow torches, flaring autumn's signal code,
Still the milkweed pours its treasure from an over-flowing cup.

The jewel-blossomed gentian hides in the willow brake,
And the dial-faced sunflowers, turning ever toward the sun,
Beam in slowly fading splendor, seeming sadly loth to make
Their adieus and bend their slender stalks in parting benison.

The elms are growing weary with the waning of the year,
While their leaves, like tears of sorrow, drop reluctantly to earth,
And their haggard branches totter, looming somber and severe
As they moan of joys departed and of winter's cold and dearth.

In the oaks the squirrels worry, up among the burnished leaves,
Which hang stiff like ancient parchments soiled by summer's careless hands,
And a warble trembles through them as a bird belated grieves
While it pauses in its lonesome pilgrimage to warmer lands.

Listen! don't you hear the patter of the dry leaves as they pass?
Hear them treading where the maple spreads its mantle on the grass?
All the early year and onward I beheld them grow and glow,
Each with its peculiar beauty shining in the vernal show.

Faded all, they fall to nourish blossoms of a fairer day;
Thus again their worth shall flourish into beauty by the way.
So again, oh friend! shall prosper every fair and noble deed,
Making lives leaf out in kindness as the fruitful days proceed.





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