The Old Year knocks at the farmhouse door. 
October, come with your matron gaze, 
From the fruit you are storing for winter days, 
And prop him up on the granary floor, 
Where the straw lies threshed and the corn stands heaped: 
Let him eat of the bread he reaped; 
He is feeble and faint, and can work no more. 

Weaker he waneth, and weaker yet. 
November, shower your harvest down, 
Chestnut, and mast, and acorn brown; 
For you he laboured, so pay the debt. 
Make him a pallet — he cannot speak — 
And a pillow of moss for his pale pinched cheek, 
With your golden leaves for coverlet. 

He is numb to touch, he is deaf to call. 
December, hither with muffled tread, 
And gaze on the Year, for the Year is dead, 
And over him cast a wan white pall. 
Take down the mattock, and ply the spade, 
And deep in the clay let his clay be laid, 
And snowflakes fall at his funeral. 

Thus may I die, since it must be, 
My wage well earned and my work-days done, 
And the seasons following one by one 
To the slow sweet end that the wise foresee; 
Fed from the store of my ripened sheaves, 
Laid to rest on my fallen leaves, 
And with snow-white souls to weep for me. 

Hear me! I say to you —"This love of ours
Can never be forgiven; nevermore
Shall I, in peace and silence, pass my door,
Sad with October sun and scattered flowers,
Unhaunted of thy memory as before.

"Nothing is virgin where thy feet have trod
The byways of my inmost heart, and where
My Soul stretched flowers to catch the skyward air,
Thy hands have sown with chaff the fields of God.
I know thy love is loveless as despair.

"I thrilled in soul, God knows my body fired,
Kindling thy perfect body, for the food
Whose sweetness proved pain sweet and evil good,
Till Life could no more bear what life desired,
Until the lips of life were crushed to blood.

"Now there is no forgiveness. Go or stay —
I cannot care, my love has been so great!
I am too tired now to love or hate;
While hour by hour I see, and day by day
Life's tears roll down the marble face of fate!"