To the Passing Seasons

From The Washington Herald, October 13, 1912.
By George Sands Johnson.
 

 There are no blossoms left to tell
   The happy days of Spring!
 While parting anthems of farewell
   Through haunted chambers ring.
 
 Amid vast shrines where ages dwell
   In peace and joy, unseen,
 Deep voices of glad visions well
   And sparkle through the green.
 
 Sweet memory of joyous hours
   That charm the backward gaze,
 Clusters around the folded flowers,
   Still gleam through autumn haze.
 
 And as the summer passes by,
   Where autumn’s shadows brood,
 Gray specters of dead beauty sigh
   In solemn solitude.
 
 How fleet and strange is fate and time!
   As life is swept along
 Through seasons dreary and sublime
   To join the vanished throng.