Autumn and I

Shall I remain a stranger to my soul, and my soul a stranger to me?
Shall I keep searching for it while it yearns without ceasing for the beautiful past,
and the love of knowledge and discovery forever spurs it on toward the unknown future?

***

How often I have sought it and searched for it, and found no trace of it;
how often I have grown weary of it and angry — then quieted at its distant echo,
for it was keeping a tryst with nature, in evening talk with the wandering butterflies.

***

How often I have counted on bringing it back while it was deep in converse with memories,
and it glared at me askance!
Would that it might come back to me! For the body longs for it, and the mind as much and more.

***

My soul is autumn's sister: he is the symbol of change, and she the symbol of doubt and perplexity.
When the leaves grow few upon the trees and drift down, weary, into the arms of the dreaming earth,
and the hedge of the field has turned to dry stubble after the little brook breathes out its last song,
my soul seems, in its silence and its daze, a yellowed leaf or a wilted flower!

***

Tomorrow spring will come, O autumn! The plain will smile in the morning,
and the clear dew will dance in rings around the wandering roses,
and a flower by the stream will lift its head on hearing a soft song close by,
and grasses will appear in the valley, swaying, that in you had lain asleep,
and at evening a little star will gleam in the sky, teasing the water with frail threads of light.
But my soul, my soul, my soul, O autumn —
will it come back to me, as spring comes to you, smiling??