Autumn Poem by Maurice Gilliams

After the summer it is an old men's land,
here yawns the heath in its vicious gall;
the brown of oaks smells of dogs,
the village glows in its October bells.

The honey drips wearily in earthenware pots
at which hands unite for consolation;
and lonely lasts the millstones' revolution,
the castle stands in its moat and rots.

Deathbeds gleam with the gold of the fathers,
it's evening and the sons see in wonder:
their birthplace sinks in the mist, yonder,
and youth and love and it all is farther.

Translated by Marian de Vooght