[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1.
The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
2.
The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The elongated vowels in ‘dead cold Year’ give this line and longer, more mournful sound fitting for the subject.  ‘Year’ is capitalised to suggest its importance. It is more than just one year, but represents the cosmic phenomenon, the Year in abstract.
Autumn: A Dirge