They're speeding on--the weary winter hours;
These are thy emblems, thou departing year:
The falling leaves, the fading of the flowers
Laid by fond Autumn on the Summer's bier. Soon will the song of lingering birds be still,
The streamlets lose the music of their tone;
For hid with pallid brow behind the hill,
stern Winter waits to mount his glittering throne. Well, let the flowers decay, the dead leaves fall;
Hushed be the birds, and stilled the streamlet's flow;
Let hoary Winter cast a blight o'er all,
And bind his withered brow with wreaths of snow. We know that May will come, and glad rills play,
And flowers along their emerald borders bloom;
Though our next spring-time may lie far away
In some fair clime of light beyond the tomb.