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AT LAST.
- Down, down like a pale leaf dropping
- Under an autumn sky,
- My love dropped into my bosom
- Quietly, quietly.
- There was not a ray of sunshine
- And not a sound in the air,
- As she trembled into my bosom—
- My love, no longer fair.
- All year round in her beauty
- She dwelt on the tree‐top high:
- She danced in the summer breezes,
- She laughed to the summer sky.
- I lay so low in the grass‐dews,
- She sat so high above,
- She never wist of my longing,
- She never dreamed of my life.
- But when winds lay bare her dwelling,
- And her heart could find no rest,
- I called—and she fluttered downward
- Into my faithful breast.
- I know that my love is fading;
- I know I cannot fold
- Her fragrance from the frost‐blight,
- Her beauty from the mould:
- But a little, little longer
- She shall contented lie,
- And wither away in the sunshine
- Silently, silently.
- Come when thou wilt, grim Winter,
- My year is crowned and blest
- If when my love is dying
- She die upon my breast.
