Explore "November" by Virna Sheard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How like a hooded friar, bent and grey, / Whose pensive lips speak only when they pray / Doth sad November pass upon his way.
Through forest aisles while the wind chanteth low -- / In God's cathedral where the great trees grow, / Now all day long he paceth to and fro.
When shadows gather and the night-mists rise, / Up to the hills he lifts his sombre eyes / To where the last red rose of sunset lies.
A little smile he weareth, wise and cold, / The smile of one to whom all things are old, / And life is weary, as a tale twice told.
"Come see," he seems to say -- "where joy has fled -- / The leaves that burned but yesterday so red / Have turned to ashes -- and the flowers are dead.
"The summer's green and gold hath taken flight, / October days have gone. Now bleached and white / Winter doth come with many a lonely night.
"And though the people will not heed or stay, / But pass with careless laughter on their way, / Even I, with rain of tears, will wait and pray. "