The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer :: :: University of Virginia Library

331

SEPTEMBER.

“The sultry Summer past, September comes,
Soft twilight of the slow-declining year.”
Carlos Wilcox.

“Month of my heart”—September mild!
Thy transient reign is passing bright;
The vine-hung temple of the wild
Is streaked with golden light:
Insects are singing in the grass,
And as with loitering step I pass,
Shy pigeons greet my view,
Robbing the fragrant sassafras
Of berries darkly blue.

Lifting their cups to drink the showers,
And nodding in the southern breeze,
Still a gay family of flowers
Are haunted by the bees:
Glove the Gerardia displays,
Tinged like the sunset's richest blaze;
And near my path behold
The beauteous Solidago raise
Its feathery stalk of gold.

Nigh mouldering logs, with moss o'erspread,
Gleam the striped Arum's coral beads,
And brake-stems, shaken by my tread,
Drop their round, clustering seeds:
I mark the Gentian's azure eye,
And berries of a crimson dye
That grace the Boxwood's crown,
And, shooting from the marsh on high,
The Typha's Catkin brown.

332

On a few children of the shade
That pale, fantastic painter—Frost—
Warm colors with cold hand hath laid,
Though not a leaf is lost:
Blood-drops may, here and there, be seen
On the low Sumach's vest of green,
As if its heart had bled,
And, where tall maples form a screen,
The grove is growing red.

Clusters of white and purple now
Deck garden-wall and trellis green,
And ripe to bursting, on the bough
The luscious peach is seen:
Sunset hath flushed its velvet cheeks,
And delicate vermilion streaks
Adorn the juicy pear:
Birds dart about with pecking beaks—
The wasp finds dainty fare.

Across the darkly furrowed plain
The sower moves with even stride,
And gracefully a bag of grain
Is swinging at his side:
A hungry pigeon flock take heed,
While far abroad the precious seed
Streams whitening from his hand;
Soon will they flutter down, and feed,
A bold, rapacious band.

The spider's beating clock I hear,
The meadow cricket blows his pipe,
And rising from the marsh, in fear
Whirrs by, the whistling snipe:
A listener to the rustling sound
My foot wakes in dry stubble ground,
Away the field-mouse springs;

333

The wheeling hawk sends out a scream,
While sunlight edges with a gleam
Of amber light his wings.

A clearing I have reached at last,
Green with a robe of sprouting wheat,
And rambling glance below I cast
On calm Autangua's circling sheet:
Touched by the day's departing beams,
Lo! like a brooch of gold it gleams
Upon the valley's breast!
Cheered by no fairer sight are dreams
Of a sweet child at rest.

Yon mower, while the buckwheat falls
In reddish swaths, his task to cheer,
Some rude old ballad strain recalls
That well I love to hear:
The squirrel, frighted by his song,
A neighboring cornfield's edge along
Races in wild dismay,
And startled crows, a noisy throng,
Fly through the woods away.

Old pastures, seamed by paths of sheep,
Fresh from the baths of gentle showers,
Are rivalling the verdure deep
Of May's enchanted hours:—
The mushroom lifts its roof of snow,
With roseate hangings draped below,
Ten meet for fairy folk!
And while his boughs wave to and fro,
Fall acorns from the oak.

Huge wains, piled high with yellow maize,
Groan as their wheels cut through the soil,
And the blithe hunter homeward strays,
Bearing his feathered spoil;

334

With mist the distant hills are crowned,
And winds, in passing, waft a sound,
Pleasant to Boyhood's ear,
Of ripe fruit falling to the ground
In orchards planted near.

Month of my heart!—September bland!
When radiant Summer breathed her last,
She placed a sceptre in thy hand,
Her robe around thee cast:
That sceptre soon will broken be,
That bright robe cease to cover thee,
For God the wide Earth made
A scroll inscribed with this decree—
“Thy loveliest things must fade!”