The Pity of the Leaves
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engeful across the cold November moors,Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleakSad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek,Reverberant through lonely corridors.The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce,Words out of lips that were no more to speak --Words of the past that shook the old man's cheekLike dead, remembered footsteps on old floors. And then there were the leaves that plagued him so!The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outsideSkipped with a freezing whisper. Now and thenThey stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him knowHow dead they were; but if the old man cried,They fluttered off like withered souls of men.
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