Works

With what a glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out;...

Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

I wait its close, I court its gloom,...

Autumn it was when droop'd the sweetest flow'rs,
And rivers, swoll'n with pride, o'erlook'd the banks;
Poor grew the day of summer's golden hours,
And void of sap stood Ida's cedar-ranks....

There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought gold where your hair was;...

The year grows still again, the surging wake
Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up,
As after passing of an argosy
Old Silence settles back upon the sea,
And ocean grows as placid as a cup....

Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,
Yet haply not incapable of joy,
Sweet Autumn! I thee hail
With welcome all unfeigned;

And oft as morning from her lattice peeps...

October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves
The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves
For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud...

The Autumn skies are flush'd with gold,
And fair and bright the rivers run;
These are but streams of winter cold,
And painted mists that quench the sun.

In secret boughs no sweet birds sing,...

I dwell alone - I dwell alone, alone,
Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
Gilded with flashing boats
That bring no friend to me:
O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,...

Here's the purple aster,
And the golden-rod,
And the blue fringed gentian,
By the meadow sod.

And the scarlet cardinal
Grows beside the brook,
And the yellow sunflower...

The Autumn is old,
The sere leaves are flying; -
He hath gather'd up gold,
And now he is dying; -
Old Age, begin sighing!

The vintage is ripe,
The harvest is heaping; -...

As a harvester, at dusk,
Faring down some woody trail
Leading homeward through the musk
Of may-apple and pawpaw,
Hazel-bush, and spice and haw, -
So comes Autumn, swart and hale,...

Tainted with death? Ah then, the taint is sweet!
As if God took the essences of life
And burned them in a brazier at his feet,
The smoke of them ascending rich and rife...

If seasons, like the human race, had souls,
Then two artistic spirits live within
The Chameleon mind of Autumn - these,
The Poet's mentor and the Painter's guide.
The myriad-thoughted phases of the mind...

The Spring is gone, the Summer-beauty wanes,
Like setting sunbeams, in their last decline;
As evening shadows, lingering on the plains,
Gleam dim and dimmer till they cease to shine:...

Yes! yes! I dare say it is so,
And you should be pitied, but how could I know,
Watching alone by the moon-lit bay;
But that is past for many a day,
For the woman that loved, died years ago,
Years ago....

The grass is wet with heavy dew,
The leaves have changed their bright green hue,
To brighter red, or golden;
The morning sun shines with a glow,
As bright and pure as long ago,...

From shy expectancy to burgeoning,
From burgeoning to ripeness and decline,
The seasons run their various course and bring
Again at last the sober days benign....

Autumn, thy rushing blast
Sweeps in wild eddies by,
Whirling the sear leaves past,
Beneath my feet, to die.
Nature her requiem sings
In many a plaintive tone,
As to the wind she flings...

With what a glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garnitude spread out...