Amenophis and Other Poems Sacred and Secular :: :: University of Virginia Library

With downcast eyes and footfall mild,
And close-drawn robe of lucid haze,
The rose-red Summer's russet child
O'er field and forest Autumn strays:
On lawn and mead at rising day
Tempers the green with pearly gray;
And 'neath the burning beech throws round
A golden carpet on the ground.

And oft a look of long regret
Her eyes to Summer's glory throw;
Delaying oft the brand to set
That strips the blossom from the bough:
And where in some low shelter'd vale
The last sweet August hues prevail,
Her eager frosts she will repress,
And spare the lingering loveliness.

And for her searing hours of night
And narrow'd spaces of her day,
By sudden smiles of mellow light
And azure gleams she strives to pay;

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With cluster'd coral tempts the bird
To livelier song than Summer heard,
Till the loud flutings of his strain
Cheat him almost to Spring again.

Yet, in her own despite, her sway
Leads down the year to gloom and cold,
And all the green delight of May
Her touch transmutes to barren gold:
As Age, that crowns with wealth our years,
Dries the sweet spring of human tears,
And while to pride of state we press,
Kills the soul's inner fruitfulness.

Ah! whilst her stealthy hands unbare
The naked trellis of the groves,
Black Winter laughs within his lair,
And revels in the wreck he loves:
And knows his hour will soon be here
To cast his shroud upon the year,
And o'er the white hill-side and vale
To ride and ravage on the gale.

And though beneath the snow-mass'd slope
The harvests of the future lie,
No hue of life, no hint of hope
Lights the dead earth and spectral sky:

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And all the promise of the Spring
Is like a hidden far-off thing;
A dream too tender, faint, and sweet,
For mortal eyes again to meet.

No! The dear hopes that grow more dear
With sterner self-restraint we quell;
And what lies hid within the year
We would not, if we could, foretell.
No!—And if once again we see
The green leaf glorify the tree,
The gray sky glisten into blue,
It will not be the Spring we knew.

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XXVIII
AUTUMN