Falling Leaves

To hush within my heart the beating cry
Up toward thy hills, I cross an English street,
On to a garden where great lindens meet:
The leaves are falling — ah, how free to die!
The leaves are falling, life is passing by.
The leaves are falling slowly at my feet,
And soon with the dead summer, soon — how sweet!
They will be garnered safe from every eye.
Their honey-mingling life among the trees
Is as it had not been; by twos and threes
Wide to the dimming earth they fall, they fall,
Yet, as I watch them dropping, something stills,
Heart of my heart, that over-bitter call,
As for one lost, to thee among thy hills.