Long in homely green they shone
Through the summer rains and sun,
Now their humbleness is gone,
Now their little season run,
Pomp and pageantry begun.
Sweet was life, and buoyant breath,
Lovely too; but for a day
Issues from the house of death
Yet more beautiful array:
Hark, a whisper—“Come away.”
One by one they spin and fall,
But they fall in regal pride:
Dying, do they hear a call
Rising from an ebbless tide,
And, hearing, are beatified?
LATE SUMMER
Though summer long delayeth
Her blue and golden boon,
Yet now at length she stayeth
Her wings above the noon;
She sets the waters dreaming
To murmurous leafy tones,
The weeded waters gleaming
Above the stepping-stones.
Where fern and ivied willow
Lean o’er the seaward brook,
I read a volume mellow—
A poet’s fairy-book;
The seaward brook is narrow,
The hazel spans its pride,
And like a painted arrow
The king-bird keeps the tide.
JANUARY DUSK
Austere and clad in sombre robes of grey,
With hands upfolded and with silent wings,
In unimpassioned mystery the day
Passes; a lonely thrush its requiem sings.