Leaves
Down come the leaves,
Like fleeting years,
Or idle tears
Of love that grieves.
A tinkling trill,
A pallid flight
Like brief delight --
And all is still.
I think about God.
Yet I talk of small matters.
Now isn't it odd
How my idle tongue chatters!
Of quarrelsome neighbors,
Fine weather and rain,
Indifferent labors,
Indifferent pain,
Some trivial style
Fashion shifts with a nod.
And yet all the while
I am thinking of God.
Brown Leaves
The passage of dead leaves in spring
Is like the aged vanishing.
Amid the bustle and delight
Of beauty thronging sound and sight,
Their lengthened course we hardly know
Nor mark their exit when they go.
Yet through the burst of budding green
And blossoms rich with varied sheen
A brown leaf sometimes flutters by
And breeds a sombre revery.
