And naught to his unseeing eyes
The brownness of a sunny plain,
Where worn and drowsy August lies,
And wakens but to sleep again.
And naught to him a greening slope,
That yearns up to the heights above,
And naught the leaves of May, that ope
As softly as the eyes of love.
And naught to him the branching aisles,
Athrong with woodland worshippers,
And naught the fields where summer smiles
Among her sunburned laborers.
The way a trailing streamlet goes,
The barefoot grasses on its brim,
The dew a flower cup o’erflows
With silent joy, are hid from him.
To him no breath of nature calls;
Upon his desk his work is laid;
He looks up at the dingy walls,
And listens to the voice of Trade.
To the October Wind
OLD playmate, showering the way
With thick leaf storms in red and gold,
I’m only six years old to-day,
You’ve made me feel but six years old.
In yellow gown and scarlet hood
I whirled, a leaf among the rest,
Or lay within the thinning wood,
And played that you were Red-of-breast.
Old comrade, lift me up again;
Your arms are strong, your feet are swift,
And bear me lightly down the lane
Through all the leaves that drift and drift,
And out into the twilight wood,
And lay me softly down to rest,
And cover me just as you would
If you were really Red-of-breast.