When Leaves Are Red

When leave are tinted with the red

     Along the country ways,

And chill creeps o’er the surf-lined shore,

     Foretelling Autumn days

Then Claribel will come to town

     As dashing as of yore;

When leaves are red, and hope lies dead,

     And summer is no more.

When leaves are red and Claribel

     Bids lovers all “good bye”,

And heads for town with eyes cast down,

     Then “saddest-days” are nigh.

For Claribel has played her part,

     Love’s nectar all have drunk,

And she’s a score of hearts or more,

     Packed safely in her trunk.

July 15, 1901

The name ‘Claribel’ means bright, clear, or shining (various sources)

In Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest” Claribel is the unseen daughter of the King of Naples and the cause of the storms that caused them to shipwreck:

…she that from whom

We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again,

And by that destiny to perform an act

Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge.

(Act II, Scene I)

               Claribel

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

     

 Where Claribel low-lieth

      The breezes pause and die,

      Letting the rose-leaves fall:

But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,

      Thick-leaved, ambrosial,

      With an ancient melody

      Of an inward agony,

Where Claribel low-lieth.

At eve the beetle boometh

      Athwart the thicket lone:

At noon the wild bee hummeth

      About the moss'd headstone:

At midnight the moon cometh,

      And looketh down alone.

Her song the lintwhite swelleth,

The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,

      The callow throstle lispeth,

The slumbrous wave outwelleth,

      The babbling runnel crispeth,

The hollow grot replieth

      Where Claribel low-lieth.