Adrienne Rich - A Walk by the Charles lyrics

Finality broods upon the things that pass:
Persuaded by this air, the trump of doom
Might hang unsounded while the autumn gloom
Darkens the leaf and smokes the river’s glass
For nothing so susceptible to death
But on this forenoon seems
To hold it's breath:
The silent single oarsmen on the stream
Are always young, are rowers in a dream
The lovers underneath the chestnut tree
Though love is over, stand bemused to see
The season falling where no fall could be

You oarsmen, when you row beyond the bend
Will see the river winding to it's end
Lovers that hold the chestnut burr in hand
Will speak at last of death, will understand
Foot deep amid the ruinage of the year
What smell it is that
Stings the gathering air

From our evasions we are brought at last
From all our hopes of faithfulness, to cast
One look of recognition at the sky
The unimportant leaves that flutter by
Why else upon this bank are we so still?
What lends us anchor but the mutable?
O lovers! Let the bridge of your two hands
Be broken like the mirrored bridge that bends
And shivers on the surface of the stream
Young oarsmen, who in timeless gesture seem
Continuous, united with the tide
Leave off your bending to the oar, and glide
Past innocence, beyond these aging bricks
To where the Charles flows in
To join the Styx