Autumnal

A poem about autumn in the style of a well-known poet

Autumn strikes with wind and rain,

With wind and rain,

The trampman’s scourge, the ploughman’s bane,

The curse of summer’s end,

When dark clouds gather, grim and grey,

And storm birds wing across the bay,

And tempests raging night and day

The hardiest branches rend.

Fleeing spring and summer past,

Ay, summer past,

I, to my autumn come at last,

Must on its byways tread,

No more beguiled by blind belief

But bowed by toil, beset with grief

I, withering like a severed leaf,

View winter’s gloom ahead.

(In the style of Thomas Hardy)