Autumn

I Saw old Autumn in the misty mornStand shadowless like Silence, listeningTo silence, for no lonely bird would singInto his hollow ear from woods forlorn,Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;⁠—5Shaking his languid locks all dewy brightWith tangled gossamer that fell by night,Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?⁠—With the sun,Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,10Till shade and silence waken up as one,And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.Where are the merry birds?⁠—Away, away,On panting wings through the inclement skies,Lest owls should prey15Undazzled at noonday,And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?⁠—In the west,Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest20Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rsTo a most gloomy breast.Where is the pride of Summer,⁠—the green prime,⁠—The many, many leaves all twinkling?⁠—ThreeOn the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime25Trembling,⁠—and one upon the old oak-tree!Where is the Dryad's immortality?⁠—Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,Or wearing the long gloomy Winter throughIn the smooth holly's green eternity.30

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,And honey bees have storedThe sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;The swallows all have wing'd across the main;35But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,And sighs her tearful spellsAmongst the sunless shadows of the plain.Alone, alone,Upon a mossy stone,40She sits and reckons up the dead and goneWith the last leaves for a love-rosary,Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,Like a dim picture of the drownèd pastIn the hush'd mind's mysterious far away,45Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the lastInto that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershadedUnder the languid downfall of her hair:She wears a coronal of flowers faded50Upon her forehead, and a face of care;⁠—There is enough of wither'd everywhereTo make her bower,⁠—and enough of gloom;There is enough of sadness to invite,If only for the rose that died, whose doom55Is Beauty's,⁠—she that with the living bloomOf conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:There is enough of sorrowing, and quiteEnough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,⁠—Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;60Enough of fear and shadowy despair,To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!