Last Poems (Housman)/When summer's end is nighing

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XXXIX
When summer's end is nighing And skies at evening cloud,I muse on change and fortune And all the feats I vowed When I was young and proud.
The weathercock at sunset Would lose the slanted ray.And I would climb the beacon That looked to Wales away And saw the last of day.
From hill and cloud and heaven The hues of evening died;Night welled through lane and hollow And hushed the countryside, But I had youth and pride.
And I with earth and nightfall In converse high would stand,Late, till the west was ashen And darkness hard at hand. And the eye lost the land.
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The year might age, and cloudy The lessening day might close,But air of other summers Breathed from beyond the snows. And I had hope of those.
They came and were and are not And come no more anew;And all the years and seasons That ever can ensue Must now be worse and few.
So here's an end of roaming On eves when autumn nighs:The ear too fondly listens For summer's parting sighs. And then the heart replies.
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