The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield ::

There's beauty in the autumnal sky,
And mellow sweetness in the air,
But it hath sadness in my eye,
And breathes of sorrow and despair;
Its softness suits not settled woe,
Its richness mocks my poverty,
And sunny day's ethereal glow
Laughs o'er my dark soul's misery.

The requiem song of sighing gale
With the dead forest foliage playing;
The chilling night wind's saddening wail
O'er rock-browed hill and wild heath straying;
The mournful sound of lapsing flood
Lamenting desert mead and shore,
Rather beseem his solitude
Who weeps for all he did adore.

I long have been a wanderer, fated
Lifes ills and wrongs and woes to bear,
With all the world can offer sated,
And borne to earth by deep despair!
And I have been betrayed, oppressed,
Belied and mocked in guise so foul,
That there dwells not within my breast
A hope, or purpose in my soul.

395

Though kindred bosoms beat with mine,
Yet I am one the world loves not;
No hopes around my being twine,
No glorious majesty of lot;
Oh! had I perished when a child,
Ere high aspirings burned to heaven,
Devotions blasted, pleasures foiled,
And passions ne'er my heart had riven!

I have no friend on this cold earth,
No cheerful prospect charms my eye,
Despair watched o'er my unwished birth,
And woe wept o'er the agony;
My childhood groaned 'neath wrong and ill,
And I grew sad when others smiled,
And ever on joy's vital thrill
Came sorrows deep and miseries wild.

My youth has been a scene of woe,
And wandering and reproach, and all
That loved me in death's overthrow
Have passed away beyond recall;
And I am left alone to bear
The burden of my burning woes,
And, blended with my heart's despair,
The tauntings of unfeeling foes.

Pale daughter of the dying year!
I ever loved thy scenes of death,
Thy foliage dropping red and sere,
Thy pensive look and nipping breath;
For thou wert like thy votary son,
Fading and dying day by day,
And smiling that thy task was done
So soon, and life had passed away.

When, oh, I trace the path of years,
And count the pangs my heart hath borne,
And number o'er my bosom's tears,
And sighs and groans of grief forlorn,

396

And think of all the dead behind,
And what they were in life to me,
I feel a glory of the mind
In holding converse thus with thee.

Oh, I would change my being high
Gladly a withered leaf to be,
And float on zephyr's pinions by,
A thing unknowing misery!
And when the snows of winter fell,
I should not feel their icy blight,
But slumber in the mountain dell
Sweetly the livelong northern night.

I ne'er could cringe and crouch to guile,
Nor thoughts repress that would arise,
Nor visor with a villain smile
Avenging hatred's demon lies;
I ne'er could herd with fashion's throng,
And whirl away the unmeaning hours,
Nor link with base nefarious wrong
My spirit's unpolluted powers.

And so my mortal life hath passed
In loneliness and grief and woe,
And I have trod a burning waste
With measured step, lone, solemn, slow,
And seen the viper brood of hate
And baseness crawl around my way,
And felt my being desolate,
A heritage of grief foraye!

Oh, dying Autumn! would with thee
I could lie down and sleep fore'er;
Thou wouldst not waken misery,
In the soft springtime of the year,
By breaking his undreaming sleep
Who never loved its brilliant flowers,
But often sighed—he could not weep—
O'er sorrow's lone and lingering hours.

397

Cold is the hand that once was pressed
In passioned rapture to my heart,
And colder yet the guiltless breast
That felt in all my woes a part:
Wild wails the wind o'er many a tomb
Which holds full many a dear one bound,
And in creation's starless gloom
I hear a lone, deep, dirgelike sound.

'T is nothing, Autumn! but thy breeze
Amid the leafless forest flying,
But yet it comes through bending trees
Like the last groan of nature dying;
And seems, as low the sun sinks down,
Like a sweet voice I loved to hear,
Though altered now its thrilling tone
To suit the melancholy year.

In childhood's hours left fatherless,
Reflective, feeling, sad and wild,
Unblessing, with but one to bless
A friendless, visionary child,
I roved abroad 'mid hills and woods,
And clomb the cliff and pluck'd the flower
That flourished there, and skimm'd the floods
And dared worst danger's utmost power.

I little thought, at that sweet time,
My heart would ache 'mid scenes like these,
When the soul soars, on wings sublime,
Among the blue sky's deities;
But, ah, long time has passed away
Since I knew not the world's deep woes,
And pleasures past around me play,
Like spectres round the dead's repose.

Since thou, pale widow of the year!
Wert here before, strange deeds have been;
Full many a heart hath quaked with fear,
And many a lovely, joyous scene

398

Hath changed to desolation wild;
Eyes, that once shone with pleasure's light,
Have wept like those of little child,
O'er rosy being's last cold blight.

And many a proud and lordly one
Hath knelt beside the robbing tomb,
And highborn things to dust have gone
With creatures nursed in lowly gloom.
All—all, O nature! die with thee,
The high, the low, the sad, the gay,
And it were joy, in sooth, to me,
If I could die like yon sweet day.

University of Virginia Library

THE WANE OF THE YEAR.