University of Virginia Library

Farewell the forest shade, the twilight grove,
The turfy path with fern and flowers inwove,
Where through long summer days I wandered far,
Till warned of Evening by her folding star.
No more I linger by the fountain's play,
Where arching boughs shut out the sultry ray,
Making at noontide hours a dewy gloom
O'er the moist marge, where weeds and wild flowers bloom;
Till, from the western sun, a glancing flood
Of arrowy radiance filled the twilight wood,
Glinting athwart each leafy, verdant fold,
And flecking all the turf with drops of gold.

Sweet sang the wild bird on the waving bough
Where cold November winds are wailing now;
The chirp of insects on the sunny lea,
And the low, drowsy bugle of the bee,
Are silent all; closed is their vesper lay,
Borne by the breeze of Autumn far away.
Yet still the withered heath I love to rove,
The bare, brown meadow, and the leafless grove;
Still love to tread the bleak hill's rocky side,
Where nodding asters wave in purple pride,
Or, from its summit, listen to the flow
Of the dark waters, booming far below.
Still through the tangling, pathless copse I stray,
Where sere and rustling leaves obstruct the way,
To find the last, pale blossom of the year,
That strangely blooms when all is dark and drear;
The wild witch-hazel, fraught with mystic power
To ban or bless, as sorcery rules the hour.
Then, homeward wending, through the dusky vale,
Where winding rills their evening damps exhale,
Pause by the dark pool, in whose sleeping wave
Pale Dian loves her golden locks to lave;
As when she stole upon Endymion's rest,
And his young dreams with heavenly beauty blest.
And thou, “stern ruler of the inverted year,”
Cold, cheerless Winter, hath thy wild career
No sweet, peculiar pleasures for the heart,
That can ideal worth to rudest forms impart?
When, through thy long, dark nights, cold sleet and rain
Patter and plash against the frosty pane,
Warm curtained from the storm, I love to lie,
Wakeful, and listening to the lullaby
Of fitful winds, that as they rise and fall
Send hollow murmurs through the echoing hall.
Oft, by the blazing hearth at even-tide,
I love to see the fitful shadows glide,
In flickering motion, o'er the illumined wall,
Till slumber's honey-dew my senses thrall;
Then, while in dreamy consciousness, I lie
'Twixt sleep and waking, fairy fantasy
Culls, from the golden past, a treasured store,
And weaves a dream so sweet, hope could not ask for more.
In the cold splendor of a frosty night,
When blazing stars burn with intenser light
Through the blue vault of heaven; when the keen air
Sculptures in bolder lines the uplands bare;
When sleeps the shrouded earth, in solemn trance,
Beneath the wan moon's melancholy glance;
I love to mark earth's sister planets rise,
And in pale beauty tread the midnight skies;
Where, like lone pilgrims, constant as the night,
They fill their dark urns from the fount of light.
I love the Borealis flames that fly,
Fitful and wild, athwart the northern sky;
The storied constellations, like a page
Fraught with the wonders of a former age,
Where monsters grim, gorgons, and hydras rise,
And “gods and heroes blaze along the skies.”
Thus Nature's music, various as the hour,
Solemn or sweet, hath ever mystic power
Still to preserve the unperverted heart
Awake to love and beauty; to impart
Treasures of thought and feeling, pure and deep,
That aid the doubting soul its heavenward course to keep.