* * * * *
AN AUTUMN DAY.
But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens, and wraps the ground,—
The blessing of supreme repose.
Away! I will not be, to-day,
The only slave of toil and care;
Away! from desk and dust, away!
I'll be as idle as the air.
Beneath the open sky abroad,
Among the plants and breathing things,
The sinless, peaceful works of God,
I'll share the calm the season brings.
Come thou, in whose soft eyes I see
The gentle meaning of the heart,—
One day amid the woods with thee,
From men and all their cares apart;—
And where, upon the meadow's breast,
The shadow of the thicket lies,
The blue wild flowers thou gatherest
Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.
Come,—and when 'mid the calm profound,
I turn those gentle eyes to seek,
They, like the lovely landscape round,
Of innocence and peace shall speak.
Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade;
And on the silent valleys gaze,
Winding and widening, till they fade
In yon soft ring of summer haze.
The village trees their summits rear
Still as its spire; and yonder flock,
At rest in those calm fields, appear
As chiselled from the lifeless rock.
One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks,
Where the hushed winds their Sabbath keep,
While a near hum from bees and brooks,
Comes faintly like the breath of sleep.—
Well might the gazer deem, that when,
Worn with the struggle and the strife,
And heart-sick at the sons of men,
The good forsake the scenes of life,—
Like the deep quiet, that awhile
Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,
Shall be the peace whose holy smile
Welcomes them to a happier shore!
Bryant.
* * * * *
SONNET.
Our love is not a fading earthly flower:
Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise.
To us the leafless autumn is not bare,
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green:
Our summer hearts make summer's fullness where
No leaf or bud or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love,—whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,
And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.
James Russell Lowell.
* * * * *