A Poem for the Day: "The Falling of the Leaves" by William Butler Yeats

Even here in southern California, fall has finally come.  The leaves are falling, the mornings are crisp, the days are short, the nights are long, and I am reminded of these two melancholy stanzas by the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats--

The Falling of the Leaves

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear upon thy drooping brow.

(1889)

***

[The photograph of the fall colors is courtesy of Matt Princing, and just seemed to fit Yeats' poetry perfectly.]