AN EVENING IN AUTUMN.
Gray shadows speed the fading day,
And creeping mists assert their sway;
They rise arrayed in varied hue,
From sober black to faintest blue,
As smoke mounts o’er a slumbering fire,
Or lingers round some funeral pyre.
Across the fields and in the wood,
Where pheasant nestles o’er her brood,
No sound is heard; the lifeless trees
Scarce move their branches in the breeze,
And fallen leaves lie curled and damp
Where glow-worm shows his tiny lamp.
Soon too with day the shadowed light
Will folded sleep, in arms of night.
Upon the marsh and up the hill
Wild rabbits scamper with a will.
The crimson sun so warm and red
Now sunken lies, in regal bed,
And tinted clouds float gently by,
Like rose-leaves o’er a painted sky.
The bending river wends its way,
Through meadows green where oxen stray;
It stretches out its lengthy arm,
Which twists and turns past heath and farm.
Here, wild fowl often make their nest,
And plover, too, with golden crest,
From off its banks will fly or run
Amid the reeds at setting sun.
The village wrapt in sweet content
Reviews, ere night, the day well spent;
And cotters lean without their door
To talk with friends the season o’er.
Beyond the sward, smooth lies the beach
Whence mighty waters onward reach,
And to the shore still rippling send
Sweet murmurings that do not end.
So softly do the wavelets move,
They seem to breathe but words of love
As if they feared or trembled, lest
They hurt one shell upon its breast;
Or cast one pebble on the sand,
Lest it should know their strength of hand.
Thus fades the day before my sight
While nature waits the coming night.