The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Come burnished autumn with thy wealth of flame,
And lofty clouds that float in tender blue;
Come leaves with tints too blended for a name,
And lakes resoftening lights that come from you;
Come gentle shadows on the mountains thrown,
High slopes all roseate at the close of day;
Come harvest fields by golden stubbles known,
And garnered sheaves that have been borne away;
Come perfect stillness, as of sorrow born,
The passing year as if resigned to die,
Holding reversed her sad and empty horn,
But loving yet her garlands where they lie.
Come northern wings that fly the icy seas
Whose crash and roar break down the Polar lands,
Come, fold your pinions where ye meet the breeze
From southern tides, that bathe our warmer sands.
Come lengthened shadows, and the shortened day,
And night slow-passing on the ways of space,
With earlier gold that flames itself away
Into the splendours of her starry face.

Hail changing life that does not speak of death,
But wheels returning from the fount of day;
Hail Nature's kindly sleep and colder breath
That holds the promise of her distant May.