University of Virginia Library

AUTUMN.

“Sweet is the quiet prime of Autumn time!”
A voice, like happy boyhood's, seemed to sing,
As half unconscious of the idle rhyme,
He carolled gaily, like a thoughtless thing.
“Sweet Autumn time! though jocund Spring be gone,
And Summer's fuller glories, one by one,—
Spring, with her lavish wealth of early flowers,
And early music in her festal bowers;
Her brief, resplendent rainbows, and her breeze
Rich with the breath of blossom-bearing trees,
Which drink the genial sunlight, as 'twere wine
Poured from a golden chalice half divine!
Summer, with languishing yet ardent looks
That stilled the fretful brawling of the brooks,
Till lightnings, born of many a labouring cloud,
Elanced their fires, and thunders, low or loud,—
Shook to the grateful earth the loosened rain,
And woke the waters into voice again.
When unmown meadow-lands were full and fair,
When slumbrous sounds were in the stirless air
Of bee that wavered on its sunny way,
Or weary song-birds' half forgotten lay;
When pleasure dimpled on the shadowy pool,
And tangled wood-haunts, still, remote, and cool,
Seemed full of sylvan visions, quaint and wild,
The dainty dream-life of the poet child,—
Though these are gone, Autumnal season, thou
Wilt be my teacher and companion now.
Thy fields all golden with the ‘embattled’ grain;
Thy woods that glow with many a gorgeous stain;
Thy homestead orchards with fair fruit that blush;
Thy jet-bright berries on the bramble bush;
Thy rough, ripe, clustering nuts, that hang between
The lowly umbrage of the hazel green;
Thy shifting shadows on the silent waste;
Thy lightsome, lonely, lofty clouds that haste
Athwart the ethereal wilderness, and stray
Like wild flocks scattered on a trackless way!
These, and thy buoyant winds that come and go
While corn, fruit, foliage, waver to and fro;—
These, while the sturdy swain with skilful ease
Reaps the proud produce of the fertile leas,
Flinging his merry harvest songs around
With the unstinted tribute of the ground,—
These can delight, can thrill with nameless joy
The restless spirit of the roving boy.”
“A sweet, yet solemn prime hath Autumn time!”
A pensive voice, like Age's, seemed to say,—
“Each of its warnings hath a tone sublime,
Each feature tells of splendour in decay!”
Sad Autumn time! sweet symbol of repose,
Can I behold thy rich harmonious close,—
All duties done, all promises fulfilled,
As an unerring Providence hath willed,
Nor feel, as Christian ought, a calm desire
Like thee in finished glory to expire?
I hear thy sere leaves, reft by every breeze
From the forsaken branches of the trees,
Shiver in air, and fall upon the ground
With a mysterious eloquence of sound!
I hear thy winds with mournful music sing
O'er naked fields that wait another spring;
Through woods that answer with a fitful moan
That make their solitudes seem doubly lone;
But there's a language in thy tone, a power
That arms my spirit for the final hour;—
A language of high teaching, rich and rife
With happy promise of immortal life.
These trees shall bud again—these shades rejoice
With a full concert of melodious voice;
These fields shall smile, these sombre waters play
In the glad light of renovated day;
These skies shall put a gayer garment on
When needful Winter and his storms are gone:
But I must lay me in the quiet sod,
My faith unshaken in the love of God,
To re-awake in that celestial clime
Where perfect beauty reigns and knows no fading time.