Ted Hughes The Seven Sorrows

The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head, / The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.
The second sorrow / Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold / Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.
And the third sorrow / Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening, / The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.
The fourth sorrow / Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle’s palace, / The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.
And the fifth sorrow / Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it’s gone.
It has only left litter- / Firewood, tentpoles.
And the sixth sorrow / Is the fox’s sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound / Till earth closes her ear
To the fox’s prayer.
And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up / Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.