An Autumn Fancy - A poem by Mrs. Ella Goodwin

An Autumn Fancy.

I wander to-day through the woodland,
The brown leaves lay crisp 'neath my feet;
Tho' the trees were still crimson and golden,
Time's footsteps were hastening fleet:
And a flood of sad fancies rushed o'er me
As I watched thc bright leaves slowly fall,
Like dear friends who no longer are near me
To respond to this lonely heart's call.

And I thought, as they fell in their beauty,
"I would it were so with my life,"
That I might be spared its dark winter
With all of its storms and its strife;
And when life is most brilliant and golden,
And love's at its brightest and best,
May I fall, ere Time's brown days have claimed me,
And sink, like a leaf to my rest.

^__Mrs. Ella Goodwin, Ludell.

Poets and Poetry of Kansas
Edited by Thomas W. Herringshaw
(Chicago: American Publishers' Association. 1894)
Page 146