 | The Battle-Day and Other Poems |  |
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A shade on the earth and a chill on the air;
Dead from the mother-tree fell leaf by leaf,
While she stood o'er their graves with a statue-like grief;
And over the mountain the hoar frost spread,
Like snows of age on a furrowed head;
The streams crept slow with a hound-like moan;
The lakes were turning as fixed as stone;
All seemed dead but the cloud and the wind—
And where they had passed they left ruin behind.
Then, when all was gone and drear,
The harvest housed, the stubble sear,
With no more to hope in that desolate hour—
The wanderer thought of the young spring-flower:
And forth he went o'er the lonely plain,
Faltering on through a shroud of rain.
His cheek was hollow and wan of hue,
And his steps were many where they'd been few!
His brow was bent, his pace was slow,
His course was wavering to and fro—
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Charged on the steeds of the hurricane-blast.
But the flower was gone where the best must go,
Showing us heaven and leaving us woe—
Gone for ever, that delicate thing,
That had outlived the summer, a child of the spring—
Modest and meek, through the rich autumn's pride
Neglected it blossomed, unheeded it died!
Type of the beautiful wrought in man's fate—
It was slighted too long, it was sought for too late!
| The Battle-Day and Other Poems | |