University of Virginia Library

A day of golden beauty! Through the night
The hoar-frost gathered, o'er each leaf and spray
Weaving its filmy net-work; thin and bright,
And shimmering like silver in the ray
Of the soft, sunny morning; turf and tree
Pranct in its delicate embroidery,
And every withered stump and mossy stone,
With gems incrusted and with seed-pearl sown;
While in the hedge the frosted berries glow,
The scarlet holly and the purple sloe,
And all is gorgeous, fairy-like, and frail
As the famed gardens of the Arabian tale.

How soft and still the autumnal landscape lies,
Calmly outspread beneath the smiling skies;
As if the earth, in prodigal array
Of gems and broidered robes, kept holiday,
Her harvest yielded and her work all done,
Basking in beauty 'neath the Autumn sun!

Yet once more, through the soft and balmy day,
Up the brown hill-side, by the woodland way,
Far let us rove, through dreamy solitudes
Where “Autumn's smile beams through the yellow woods,”
Fondly retracing each sweet summer haunt
And sylvan pathway; where the sunbeams slant
Through yonder copse, kindling the yellow stars
Of the witch-hazel with their golden bars;
Or, lingering down this dim and shadowy lane,
Where still the damp sod wears an emerald stain,
Though ripe brown nuts hang clustering in the hedge,
And the rude barberry, o'er yon rocky ledge,
Droops with its pendant corals. When the showers
Of April clothed this winding path with flowers,
Here oft we sought the violet, as it lay
Buried in beds of moss and lichens gray;
And still the aster greets us, as we pass,
With her faint smile,—among the withered grass
Beside the way, lingering as loath of heart,
Like me, from these sweet solitudes to part.

Now seek we the dank borders of the stream,
Where the tall fern-tufts shed a tawny gleam
Over the water from their saffron plumes;
And, clustering near, the modest gentian blooms
Lonely around, hallowed by sweetest song,
The last and loveliest of the floral throng.
Yet here we may not linger, for behold
Where the stream widens, like a sea of gold
Outspreading far before us! All around
Steep, wooded heights and sloping uplands bound
The sheltered scene; along the distant shore,
Through colored woods, the glinting sunbeams pour,
Touching their foliage with a thousand shades
And hues of beauty, as the red light fades
Beneath the shadow of a fleecy shroud,
Or, through the rifted silver of the cloud,
Pours down a brighter gleam. Gray willows lave
Their pendant branches in the crystal wave,
And slender birch-trees o'er its banks incline,
Whose tall, slight stems across the water shine
Like shafts of silver; there the tawny elm,—
The fairest subject of the sylvan realm,—
The tufted pine-tree, and the cedar dark,
And the young chestnut, its smooth, polished bark
Gleaming like porphyry in the yellow light;
The dark brown oak and the rich maple, dight
In robes of scarlet,—all are standing there,
So still, so calm, in the soft, misty air,
That not a leaf is stirring; not a sound
Startles the deep repose that broods around,
Save when the robin's melancholy song
Is heard amid the coppice, and along
The sunny side of yonder moss-grown wall
That skirts our path the cricket's chirping call,
Or the fond murmur of the drowsy bee
O'er some lone floweret on the sunny lea,
And, heard at intervals, a pattering sound
Of ripened acorns rustling to the ground
Through the crisp, withered leaves. How lonely all,
How calmly beautiful! Long shadows fall
More darkly o'er the wave as day declines,
Yet from the west a deeper glory shines;
While every crested hill and rocky height
Each moment varies in the kindling light
To some new form of beauty, changing through
All shades and colors of the rainbow's hue,
The last still loveliest, till the gorgeous day
Melts in a flood of golden light away;
And all is o'er. Before to-morrow's sun
Cold winds may rise, and shrouding shadows dun
Obscure the scene; yet shall these fading hues
And fleeting forms their loveliness transfuse
Into the mind, and memory shall burn
The painting in on her enameled urn
In undecaying colors. When the blast
Hurtles around and snows are gathering fast,
When musing sadly by the twilight hearth,
Or lonely wandering through life's crowded path,
Its quiet beauty, rising through the gloom,
Shall soothe the languid spirits and illume
The drooping fancy,—winning back the soul
To cheerful thoughts through Nature's sweet control.