Love's Retrospect - Poem by John Bannister Tabb

I knew that he was dying; for the leaves
Late-fallen, shivered on the frosty ground,
Disconsolate, with the foreboding sound
That Autumn whispers to the heart that grieves.
The sunshine, slanting upward, smote the sheaves
O'ershadowing the hill-tops ranged around,
And where the swallow's empty nest was found,
Spattered, as if with blood, the sheltering eaves.


Twin fires together faded: and but one
Rewakened o'er a world henceforth to me
In everlasting twilight. To the Past
The Present pays its tribute, whereupon
Each moment coins the selfsame effigy,-
The more than all by wealth unwidowed cast.