Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light.

Sad, sad to think that the year is all but done.

The year is dying in the night.

The year ended in a roar of pain.

And so it fell upon a day, (That is, it never rose again)

The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.

The leaves of life are falling one by one

And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.

In this autumn of 1919, in which I write, we are at the dead season of our fortunes.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Ah, but my Computations, People say, Reduced the Year to better reckoning? — Nay 'Twas only striking from the Calendar Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.

It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.