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If poetry comes not so naturally as leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. - Keats

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	Autumn

I have allowed my family to scatter,
All those who were my dearest to depart,
And once again an age-long loneliness
Comes in to fill all nature and my heart.

Alone this cottage shelters me and you:
The wood  is an unpeopled wilderness
And ways and footpaths wear, as in the song.
Weeds almost overgrowing each recess;

And where we sit together by ourselves
The log walls gaze upon us mournfully.
We gave no promise to leap obstacles,
We shall yet face our end with honesty.

At one we'll sit, at three again we'll rise,
My  book with me, your sewing in your hand,
Nor with the dawning shall we realize
When  all our kissing shall have had an end.

You  leaves, more richly and more recklessly
Rustle your dresses, spill yourselves away,
And  fill a past day's cup of bitterness
Still higher with the anguish of today!

All this delight, devotion and desire!
We'll fling ourselves into September's riot!
Immure  yourself within the autumn's rustle
Entirely: go crazy, or be quiet!

How  when you fall into my gentle arms
Enrobed in that silk-tasselled dressing gown
You  shake the dress you wear away from you
As only coppices shake their leaves down!-

You are the blessing on my baneful way,
When life has depths worse than disease can reach,
And courage is the only root of beauty,
And it is this that draws us each to each.

1949
			Translated by Henry Kamen