WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
1. The melancholy days[573] are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing[574] winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying[575] gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,
And from the wood-top caws[576] the crow, through all the gloomy day.
2. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers