Sonnet in Autumn

My autumn is not fields of lifelessness,

Nor rotting piles of past-ripe summertime,

Nor pasture streams, thick-clogged with watercress

And dried up straw and leaves and dead brooklime.

It could be that if I were one to think

A withered thing is dead, I’d leave it so;

But I like age that does not wince or shrink,

That’s crisp and spry. And I like years that grow

With neatness and a trim perennial stride.

I’ve Fall-plowed all my land and cleared the brush

Out of the shallow streams. And side by side

In homemade bins lie piles of summer’s lush.

Now as I watch the year grow autumn old,

The only age I see is deepening gold.