When the reaper lays the sickle by,
And taketh down the flail:
When all we prized, and all we planned,
Is ripe and stored at last,
And Autumn looks across the land,
And ponders on the Past.
Alfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or simply refused the honor. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895.