Later Life: a Double Sonnet of Sonnets

Here now is Winter. Winter, after all, / Is not so drear as was my boding dream / While Autumn gleamed its latest watery gleam / On sapless leafage too inert to fall. / Still leaves and berries clothe my garden wall / Where ivy thrives on scantiest sunny beam; / Still here a bud and there a blossom seem / Hopeful, and robin still is musical. / Leaves, flowers and fruit and one delightful song / Remain; these days are short, but now the nights / Intense and long, hang out their utmost lights; / Such starry nights are long, yet not too long; / Frost nips the weak, while strengthening still the strong / Against that day when Spring sets all to rights.