Autumnal breaks the flame upon the sun-set herds.

The sheep on Gilead as tawn hair gleam

Neath Mithra’s dower and his slow departing,

While in the sky a thousand fleece of gold

Bear, each his tribute, to the waning god.

Hung on the rafters of the effulgent west,

Their tufted splendour shields his decadence,

As in our southern lands brave tapestries

Are hung king-greeting from the ponticells

And drag the pageant from the earth to air,

Wherein the storied figures live again,

Wind-molden back unto their life’s erst guise,

All tremulous beneath the many-fingered breath

That Aufidus doth take to house his soul.

[Footnote 8: The West wind.]