November
by William Morris

English poet, translator, essayist, publisher and printer. His first published work was The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858). He achieved success as a poet with a romantic narrative, The Life and Death of Jason. He wrote a series of narrative poems collected in The Earthly Paradise (1868). His principal achievement is considered to be the epic Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876), influenced by the Old Norse sagas. Among his best romances are A Dream of John Ball (1886) and News from Nowhere (1890). Underrated as a poet, he is remembered more as a designer and craftsman.

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November
by William Morris

Are thine eyes weary? is thy heart too sick
To struggle any more with doubt and thought,
Whose formless veil draws darkening now and thick
Across thee, e'en as smoke-tinged mist-wreaths brought
Down a fair dale to make it blind and nought?
Art thou so weary that no world there seems
Beyond these four walls, hung with pain and dreams?

Look out upon the real world, where the moon,
Halfway 'twixt root and crown of these high trees,
Turns the dead midnight into dreamy noon,
Silent and full of wonders, for the breeze
Died at sunset, and no images,
No hopes of day, are left in sky or earth -
Is it not fair, and of most wondrous worth?

Yea, I have looked, and seen November there;
The changeless seal of change it seemed to be,
Fair death of things that, living once, were fair;
Bright sign of loneliness too great for me,
Strange image of the dread eternity,
In whose void patience how can these have part,
These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?

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November by William Morris