Reply to "Poems of Boris Pasternak"

Indian Summer

Currant leaves, rough and hirsute as hessian.
There is laughter and ringing of glass,
And slicing and pickling and peppering,
And cloves marinating in jars.

For a jest the woods hurl all this uproar
Pell-mell down the steep hillside slope,
Where the hazels stand scorched in the sunshine,
Toasted brown in a bonfire glow.

Here the roadway leads down to the hollow,
One feels sad for these dry, broken boughs,
And for autumn, the old rag-and-bone man,
Who swept everything into this trough -

Sad that the world is much simpler
Than smart Alecs seem to suppose,
Sad for the tree grove that's drooping,
Sad that everything comes to a close.

But when all you survey burns to cinders,
And when flakes of autumnal white soot
Drift like gossamer strands through the window,
There's no purpose in any blank looks.

A garden path leads through the fencing,
Then loses its way in the birch.
Household hubbub and laughter ring out, and
From afar their faint echoes return.