Now comes an end to quiet autumn days And to frail loveliness. In the still night Cold death has crept along the garden ways To wrap at last about each blossom bright Its funeral garment white. And where a myriad cruel prisms blaze, Ironically now the sun’s kind rays Shine but to blast and blight. One hour of beauty on this shining morn— White, mocking beauty while the frost rime clings. Then bud and blossom, fashioned to adorn The earth, are but a heap of blackened things, All loveliness takes wings . . . And yet, not all! Still in a land forlorn, Most valiantly by a glowing thorn, A grey thrush sweetly sings.