 | Poems with Fables in Prose |  |
149
The Nutter
I
I am the Autumn. Rising from the throneI watch the pageant of my courtiers pass;
Chestnuts' canary-feather'd beauty strown—
The lime's gold tribute at his foot amass—
Fragile jewels from larches blown
Enrich with disarray the trembling grass,
Until the beggar'd elms, too proud to bend,
Emblaze a hundred winds with my rash kingdom's end.
II
But look! within the beech's burning houseSome Nutter, deaf to shouts of fellow-thieves,
Hath flung him with his crook to dream and drowse
Flush-cheek'd alone, upon the mounded leaves.
The squirrel headlong from his eaves
Creeps curious down: then drops with sudden souse;
The still-come culvers burst away; and flits
The beechmast-feasting multitude of shadowy tits.
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III
Where are thy friends? Gone on to sack the glades,My rooms of tatter'd state, not to return.
No moth-bright brambles and no rainy braids
Of ivy, 'mid the sheen and smoke of fern,
Could trammel-up for long their raids.
Up, boy! pursue them down the misty burn!
But on his bosom tann'd, in slumber fast,
Patters the mimic shower of ever-dropping mast.
IV
What, lads? The last of my poor banquet loseTo thy wild kin of air? For them the dell
O'er-briar'd hath lean rose-berries and yews
And scarlet fruits of ash, that, ere they swell,
The missel-thrushes, fluttering, choose;
Privet is theirs and briony as well,
And redwings wait for the frost-mellow'd sloe,
Their orchard is the spinney-side—Awake, and go!
V
Leaf-driven, my young October in a whileAwoke bemazed; on ragged knee arose,
Snatch'd at his crook, and hid a shamèd smile
Vaulting the ruddy brambles. As he goes
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Warbling to wander many a forest mile—
So Dryad may the rooty pool forsake
Afraid, or antler'd shadow melt into the brake.
VI
And I go too,—ah! not with mortal thingsNaked of riches here to flutter down—
I soar and tremble in a million wings
Above the fen, the coastland, and the town,
By dark sea-sunken islands boune
Sweeping to choir Apollo where he sings
Unslain! The lighthouse lamp, that hears the sky
Roaring all night with passage, knows that it is I!
| Poems with Fables in Prose | |