W. H. Auden — Autumn Song lyrics

Lyrics

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse’s flowers will not last,
Nurses to the graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.
Whispering neighbours left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.
Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Scrawny through a plundered wood
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Clear, unscalable, ahead /
Rise the Mountains of Instead, /,
From whose cold cascading streams /
None may drink except in dreams. /.
Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.
Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain’s lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.