The Elves of Autumn
The silver birch is the crowned with gold,
In sunlight, as the year grows old,
And twilit evenings turn to cold;
Old men seek the fireside.
A distant pipe sings on the breeze,
Notes floating slyphlike through the trees,
Why do these minstrels no-one sees
Play a melancholy air?
And does their music weep and sigh,
For lands afar and times gone by?
Is it for west wind their hearts cry?
And swans upon the ocean?
The days are short, the last leaves fall,
The chill keeps us to hearth and hall,
Not so the fair folk, sad and tall,
Who mourn their days of summer.
All dressed in russet and in tawn,
They creep like frost before the dawn,
Their footprints lost ere comes the morn,
Forlorn the elves of autumn.