University of Virginia Library

AUTUMN TWILIGHT.

There is a soft haze hanging on yon hill,
Tinged with a purple light. How beautiful,
And yet, how cold! 'Tis the first robe put on,
With gloomy foretaste of a gloomier hour,
By the sad Autumn. Well may she repine,—
With heavy dread of winter at her heart,
Adverse to present sweetness as to hope,
Which never cheers her fortunes. She is doom'd—
Survivor of a race that left no heirs,
And she, the mourner of the beautiful,
Whose treasure, in the past to which she glides,
Was but a bright decay, a perishing bloom,
The bounty of a love whose dearest gifts
Best show in desolation. The sweet green,
The summer flush of love—the golden bloom
That came with flowers in April, and brought sweets
Whose purity might teach a faith that life
Were also in their breathing—all are gone!
The green grows pallid—the warm, virgin flush,
That was in summer's eye, and on her cheek,
A glory all too precious for a dream,—
Too precious far for mortal certainty—
Fleets all—as keen, the breezes from the hills
Sweep icily o'er the meadows. All the bright hues,
That graced the flowers and hemispheric crowns
Of trees grown haughty in a birthday dress,
Seem vanishing with the sunset. The last rays
That drink their purple brightness with their lives,
Fade upwards through the forest—a sad flush,
That lothly leaves the twilight, and a while
Lingers upon the hill-tops, as surveying
The empires that it forfeits. Now the winds,
Slow rising as from caverns of the night,
With trailing robes of darkness, and broad arms,
Stretched out, in action suited to the dirge
That speaks the mournful ruin of their homes,
Wail heavily through the branches; while the leaves,
Saddest of mourners! flung on summer's grave,
Lament her in the silence of true grief!
Ah! mock me not that thus I mourn with them;
The sad heart's wisdom is to weep enough!—
I hear your lesson, but of what avail?
Since, while it teaches worthlessness of grief,
It still acknowledges the pregnant cause
That, in the very uselessness of tears,
Compels our tears most freely. You discourse,
To feeling, with a counsel that prevents
All feeling; and unless you stifle her,
You teach most idly. Never yet was grief
Fit moralist,—and that philosophy,
Which will not take its color from the heart
It seeks to fortify against the cloud,
Reaches no sacred chord of sympathy,
Responsive with sweet echoes. All your laws
Teach sorrow when you teach her hopelessness.
To bid the sacred current cease to flow,
'Tis needful first you freeze it; and what gain,
To him with dear affections, o'er whose grave,
He still encourages dear memories,
That feeling should be made secure from hurt,
By gross and cold insensibility?
Foregoing nature, what do we acquire
But forfeiture? As well persuade the flower
To grow to stone, lest, rifled by the storm,
Its premature bloom shall perish. If unwise
To yield to sorrow the sole sovereignty,
As little wise to substitute for this,
The apathy, that, still rejecting grief,
Grows ignorant of all rapture. You declaim—
With the grave studied eloquence of books,
Writ by cold monks in the ascetic cell,
That life is full of changes.—Be it so!
These changes ever are from joy to woe,
And woe to joy again. To conquer one
Is scarce to know the other. In your calm,
'Tis easy to declare that things of life,
By the inevitable laws of things,
Are also things of death; but not the less
Find we a sacred certainty of grief,
Even in this very knowledge. Death, you say,
Still harvests forms that love, not less than forms
That simply live; and folly 'tis to mourn,
That the dear life whose presence was a joy
And fragrance, that forever brought us joy,
Is destined to as sure an apathy
As the poor flowers we tread on.
Happy he,
Perchance—and yet I think not—who can thus
Prose calmly over nature, and the fate
Of her dear offspring in whatever fields.
But mine is not this happiness;—nor mine,
The thought that happiness may light her fire,
From such dry chips of doctrine. The rich sap,
May from the wounded tree gush forth in tears,
The green rind feel its hurts, and something lose
Of verdure in the injury which it feels.
But teach the bough, how better were it lopt,
And flung into the fire, than suffering thus,
From the keen hurts of the too wanton axe
The wound will heal. You point me to the scars;
But while it still hath rind for newer hurts,
And fresh sap still to flow from other wounds,
The scars are but in proof of strength to bear,
As well as hurts to suffer. Tears, for me,
Bring sweet relief for what is lost or borne,
As teaching still of sensibilities
For future feeling; whether joy or woe,
Or gain or loss;—and, in this consciousness,
One finds a better solace for the past,
Than in that cold philosophy which stills
The too susceptible pulse, lest it should throb,
Some day, with fever. Yet, that fever throb,
Itself, declares the warm vitality
Still looking forth with hope.
And still you chide,
That grief should waste upon inferior things,
Leaves of the forest, flowers of the summer day,
Fruits of a season's tribute, and frail fancies
Born of the dew and sunshine, for the hour,
The sorrows that might find excuse, if given
For loss of human treasure—forms and greatness,
Which fill society with sense of virtue,
And still commend to love that fierce ambition
That makes even love a sacrifice in turn!
Alas! we know not what is worthy, what is great,
And weep from fancy, rather than from law;
And fancy is a law, and in our feelings
Hath charter'd rights, and shapes them at her pleasure,
To make us weep, if need be; tears and sorrows
Being as much her proper properties,
As sunshine and gay laughter, sport and flight.
Yet have I something of a plea beyond,
In the condition which has shut me out
From much, that, in the common social life,
Commends itself unto humanity,
As only worth its care. Mine was a lot
Peculiar in its loneliness of aim,
If not distinction. Childhood found me first
A sad bewilder'd orphan—one who stood
Alone among his fellows,—and when wrong'd,
Knew not the lap in which to hide his head,
Nor friendly ear in which to pour complaint.
I had no parent's tendance. Never mine
A sister's lips have hallow'd while they press'd;—
No brother call'd me his;—no natural ties
Embraced, and train'd, and cherish'd my wild youth,
Which still went erring into devious ways,
Sorrowing as much as sinning, in a mood
That craved love only for its guide to goodness;—
And this alone it found not—or in vain!—
And thus, with strong affections, still in exile,
Denied where they sought favor, I have turn'd
To the inanimate, unspeaking creatures,
That grew about or wanton'd in my path—
Having no scorn or hatred in their hearts—
Having no voice of censure on their tongues—
For that most needed sympathy of nature,
Which answer'd best the hunger in my heart.
Thus were my footsteps won into the forest,
Thus did I seek these groves as if in worship,
With regular tendance, and a meek observance,
That suffer'd not the chant of winds, the sighing,
That seem'd most human, in the pine's great branches,—
The fall of leaf, the shadows of the thicket,
Or flutter of the gay bird o'er the pathway,—
To 'scape me;—moralizing at each motion,
Something, that as it soothed the troubled feeling,
Was surely not philosophy. My rambles
Still brought me what I sought;—and these pale flowers,
And the green leaves, now yellow, at our feet,
Were something more to me than leaves and flowers.
They were my kindred. Now, that they are gone,
I weep them as a loss of family,
And tread among them with a cautious step,
A sad, slow motion, and with trembling heart,
As I were reading, in some ancient church-yard,
The names of dear ones precious to my childhood.