Mouldering Leaves

O leaves that are not simple leaves that shed.
To us, that cannot be! To other men
They are the years that will not come again.
The years that fade; they are our fading dead:
For he, our lonesome One, was forest led;
He drew not to Avernus' loathsome den;
But roamed and wearied in the woods, and then
Lay down to die, the forest overhead.
He gave himself to earth, even as the leaves.
To waste in humbleness, by day, by night,
Before the sun, patient to disappear.
Patient to stay; therefore to us the leaves,
Even the mouldered leaves of every year,
Repeat the form of that slow, funeral rite.