Autumn Song

With long sobs
the violin-throbs
of autumn wound
my heart with languorous
and monotonous
sound.

Choking and pale
When I mind the tale
the hours keep,
my memory strays
down other days
and I weep;

and I let me go
where ill winds blow
now here, now there,
harried and sped,
even as a dead
leaf, anywhere.

From Poèmes Saturniens, 1866