DEAD LEAVES.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 99, 25 April 1885, Page 7

DEAD LEAVES.

The' leaves are withered ; sweep them away ; The leaves are dead, they have had their day. They lie in the pathways and cover the grass. And they moulder beneath the feet that pass; So let them go and no more be found, Why should the dead loaves cumber the ground ? And yet what joy they have been to us ; It were hard to part from our oid friends th us ; Spare them some thanks for the good the}' weie, As they danced and shone in the summer air ; t i Give them legard for they try to say (Jheery things to u.s even to-day. Many-coloured, crimson and gold, Brown and bronze are tne leaves grown old. ! Never more beautiful since their birth Than now when dying they seek the earth ; There to be buried, the dead leaves prove, L'hat very old things may have gnue and love. And they preach us a sermon grave and stern, On a text which the hsart is slow to learn, "We all do fade as a leaf-" we come, Withered as the), to the last earth home ; And the strongest one ha^ at lust to go, Drooping and faint to to the grave below. God grant that we in our life'c* decay, May be lovely as in autumn are thej' ; God gives us rest in the Hading time ; And then new life in the fadeless clime ;. . n so like the leaves sha'l we all fulfil «Jur destined tasks, and the Father's will,