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Home  »  The New Poetry  »  The Last Days

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Last Days

By George Sterling

THE RUSSET leaves of the sycamore

Lie at last on the valley floor—

By the autumn wind swept to and fro

Like ghosts in a tale of long ago.

Shallow and dear the Carmel glides

Where the willows droop on its vine-walled sides.

The bracken-rust is red on the hill;

The pines stand brooding, somber and still;

Gray are the cliffs, and the waters gray,

Where the seagulls dip to the sea-born spray.

Sad November, lady of rain,

Sends the goose-wedge over again.

Wilder now, for the verdure’s birth,

Falls the sunlight over the earth;

Kildees call from the fields where now

The banding blackbirds follow the plow;

Rustling poplar and brittle weed

Whisper low to the river-reed.

Days departing linger and sigh:

Stars come soon to the quiet sky;

Buried voices, intimate, strange,

Cry to body and soul of change;

Beauty, eternal fugitive,

Seeks the home that we cannot give.