ELEGY IN AUTUMN
IN MEMORY OF
Frank Dempster Sherman
BY
Clinton Scollard
NEW YORK
Frederic Fairchild Sherman
MCMXVII
Copyright, 1917, by
Clinton Scollard
ELEGY IN AUTUMN
I
Brother in song, you who have gone before
Along far incommunicable ways,
Leaving me here upon this mortal shore,
A bondman to the tyrant nights and days,
Across the distance, hail!
Though Time may sever, and we meet no more,
Yet what shall Time avail!
II
’Twas Autumn when we first set hand to hand,
And eye to eye, in loyal comradeship;
Drowsed with a draught of Beauty seemed the land,
As it had raised a golden cup to lip;
But you embodied Spring,
Its harvest hopes, its deeds in joyance planned,
Its brave adventuring.
III
I can recall your buoyance,—can recall
The star-sown hours beneath the Cambridge trees,
When o’er us wheeled the bright processional
Of bold Orion and the Pleiades,
And how we strolled along
Laughterful, and oblivious to all
Save the sweet thrall of Song.
IV
Youth has its visions and its fervors; yours
Were lovingly enlinked with Poesy;
You dreamed the dream that many an one allures,
The vernal dream where life is harmony.
And though the years estranged
Your full allegiance, something still assures
My heart you never changed.
V
What merriment was ours those shut-in nights
When Winter, clamorous at the casement, cried!
What dear association, what delights
As we in friendly emulation vied,
While Aspiration’s cruse
Was brimmed for us, beholding on dim heights
The presence of the Muse!
VI
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