Before The End

How does the Autumn in her mind conclude
  The tragic masque her frosty pencil writes,
  Broad on the pages of the days and nights,
  In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood?
  What lonelier forms--that at the year's door stood
  At spectral wait--with wildly wasted lights
  Shall enter? and with melancholy rites
  Inaugurate their sadder sisterhood?--
  Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slow
  The green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies;
  Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt Woe
  Wakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs;
  And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and sees
  The earth and sky grow dream-accessories.