AUTUMN

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

To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee

    To drink the dewy breath

    Of fields left fragrant then,

In solitudes, where no frequented paths

But what thy own foot makes betray thine home,

    Stealing obtrusive there

    To meditate thy end:

By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,

With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,

    Which woo the winds to play,

    And with them dance for joy;

And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,

Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,

    On which, as wont, the fly

    Oft battens in the sun;

Where leans the mossy willow half way o’er,

On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw

    His angle, clear of weeds

    That crowd the water’s brim;

Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,

Where, step by step, the patient lonely boy

    Hath cut rude flights of stairs

    To climb their steepy sides;

Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,

The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed,

    And struggles through the weeds

    With faint and sullen brawl.--

These haunts I long have favoured, more as now

With thee thus wandering, moralizing on;

    Stealing glad thoughts from grief,

    And happy, though I sigh.

Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,

And raiment shadowy of each wind’s embrace,

    Fain would I win thine harp

    To one accordant theme.

Now not inaptly craved, communing thus,

Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,

    While pillowed on the grass,

    We fondly ruminate

O’er the disordered scenes of woods and fields,

Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,

    Pastures tracked deep with cows,

    Where small birds seek for seed:

Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills

His frequent, unpremeditated song,

    Wooing the winds to pause,

    Till echo brawls again;

As on with plashy step, and clouted shoon,

He roves, half indolent and self-employed,

    To rob the little birds

    Of hips and pendant haws,

And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,

And rambling bramble-berries, pulpy and sweet,

    Arching their prickly trails

    Half o’er the narrow lane:

Noting the hedger front with stubborn face

The dank bleak wind, that whistles thinly by

    His leathern garb, thorn proof,

    And cheek red hot with toil;

While o’er the pleachy lands of mellow brown,

The mower’s stubbling scythe clogs to his foot

    The ever ekeing whisp,

    With sharp and sudden jerk,

Till into formal rows the russet shocks

Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weather’d barns,

    And hovels rude repair,

    Stript by disturbing winds.

See! from the rustling scythe the haunted hare

Scampers circuitous, with startled ears

    Prickt up, then squat, as by

    She brushes to the woods,

Where reeded grass, breast-high and undisturbed,

Forms pleasant clumps, through which the soothing winds

    Soften her rigid fears,

    And lull to calm repose.

Wild Sorceress! me thy restless mood delights,

More than the stir of summer’s crowded scenes,

    Where, jostled in the din,

    Joy palled my ear with song;

Heart-sickening for the silence, that is here

Not broken inharmoniously, as now

    That lone and vagrant bee

    Booms faint with weary chime.

Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods

In tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath,

    Some sickly cankered leaf

    Let go its hold, and die.

And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,

In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,

    Thee urging to thine end,

    Sore wept by troubled skies.

And yet, sublime in grief! thy thoughts delight

To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,

    Haply forgetting now

    They but prepare thy shroud;

Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,

Improvident of waste, till every bough

    Burns with thy mellow touch

    Disorderly divine.

Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream

Droop faintly, and so reckon for thine end,

    As sad the winds sink low

    In dirges for their queen;

While in the moment of their weary pause,

To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark

    Starts from his shielding clod,

    Snatching sweet scraps of song.

Thy life is waning now, and Silence tries

To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds,

    As stooping low she bends,

    Forming with leaves thy grave;

To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,

Till parched-lipped Summer pines in drought away

    Then from thine ivy’d trance

    Awake to glories new.