Autumn, come down!
Lean down, High Lady, from your starry arch,
Over the maples and the fragrant larch,
Stoop down some frosty night,
Like a proud maiden from an old, walled town
Tossing a rainbow favor to her knight.
Lean down, lean down!
Come take our northern forests for your palace,
Dance in the witch fires of the borealis,
Stand misty-eyed upon the mountain tops
Or sit and gaze,
With wind-twitched cloak and merry, cast-back hood,
Down valleys purpled by the grape-blue haze,
Beside some flaming wood.
Come throw your mad flambeaux
Till all the motley, fire-streaked woodlands glow!
Autumn, come down!
Lady, how often must I ask it?
Proud plenty, if you will, with vine-wreathed basket
Shall bring you offerings of damasked plums—
For you in orchards mellow peaches plash
All night.
The lichens whiten on the lonely ash,
The clover blackens and the last bee hums.
Autumn, come down,
You brown-skinned sorceress,
And witch the leaves, for harvest home,
And bear the nodding sheaves
Into the red barns by the little town,
Autumn, come down, come down!