This autumn night
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A chill now twines its way about the walls
Of forms delimited through sunny days,
Of leafy garrisons and barken halls.
Outside, a frosty tendril through the maze
Of moats and hills, of solemn ancient groves
Winds and cackles, ruminates and roves
Intent on taking creatures unaware.
And younglings frolic still, without a care —
Without a furrowed brow or heavy thought
Of death and the illusioned pain she’s wrought.

Life must shoulder on while wither-fade
The verdant pennants, flowers bright, and blade
Of emerald lawn which weaves a threnody
For all its fallen souls, that never be
Forgotten all the children of the earth —
Enshrined in song inestimable worth
Of every onetime-vital pulsing orb
Of spirit which eternity absorbs.

A chill is in the boughs and in the wind;
In the veins — a-brush against the skin
Of every broken-hearted who will mend
In course of time the self-inflicted sin
Of dearth of love — withheld, the highest balm
That lends a body peace, profoundest calm —
Forgiveness of a hatred-scarrèd past.

That this fall, too, the spirit might outlast
A vacuum of warmth-absence with a faith
Profounder — more magnificent than wraith
Of chill that twines its way about the walls
Of leafy garrison and barken halls
Yet enters not into the molten core
Of ecstasy — which darkness must abhor,
Who signifies the long-fated demise
Of grayness sett'ling now into the skies
Of autumn night.
                               A cusp of sanity
Burgeons with the starry clarity
Of cold and distant-seeming galaxies,
And smiles down with wink of atmosphere
Upon unknowing, loyal prodigies
Whose prowesses are held by thinnest fear
Of spidersilk — constructed in the mind:
Barest thread which holds in iron bind
The vast and soaring spirits on the plain,
Who, if they only ask, can be made sane
Within an instant — twinkling of the eye,
Transfigure me, and hold my spirit high —
Bring my dimming vision to the light,
While winds a chill all through this autumn night.