1.
Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she
Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess:
Now Time grants night the more and day the less;
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and reds in dulling greens express
Themselves and broaden as the year goes down.
Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and high
Their balls of seeds, the hoary onions die,
Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie:
Deeper each wilderness;
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow,
Deeper and dreamier, aye!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone orchards where the cider-press
Drips and the russets mellow.
Nature grows liberal; under woodland leaves
The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets poke,
Plump with the copper of the nuts that choke;
Above our bristling way the spider weaves
A glittering web for which the Dawn designs
Thrice twenty rows of sparkles. By the oak,
That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines,
The acorn thimble, smoothly broke,
Shines by its saucer. On sonorous pines
The far wind organs; but the forest here
To no weak breeze hath woke;
Far off the wind, but crumbling near and near,—
Each tingling twig expectant, and the gray
Surmise of heaven pilots it the way,
Rippling the leafy spines,
Until the wildwood, one exultant sway,
Booms, and the sunlight, arrowing through it, shines
Visible applause you hear.
How glows the garden! though the white mists keep
The vagabond in flowers reminded of
Decay that comes to slay in open love,
When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep,
Unheeding such their cardinal colors leap
Gay in the crescent of the blade of death;
Spaced innocents in swaths he weeps to reap,
Waiting his scythe a breath,
To gravely lay them dead with one last sweep.—
Long, long admire
Their splendors manifold:—
The scarlet salvia showered with spurts of fire;
Cascading lattices, dark vines that creep,
Nightshade and cypress; there the marigold
Burning—a shred of orange sunset caught
And elfed in petals that eve's goblins brought
From elfland; there, predominant red,
The dahlia lifts its head
By the white balsams' red-bruised horns of honey,
In humming spaces sunny.
The crickets singing dirges noon and night
For morn-born flowers, at dusk already dead,
For dusk-dead flowers weep;
While tired Summer white,
Where yonder aster whispering odor rocks,—
The withered poppies knotted in her locks,—
Sighs, 'mong her sleepy hollyhocks asleep.