OLIVIA IN THE AUTUMN
Not redder than her lips
This weather!
Not rosier two rose-hips
Together!
As she comes carolling
Down wildwood ways, where sing
The birds, and flowers swing
In many a feather.
Of her belovéd cheeks
October
Makes flame-flushed leaves, and speaks,—
Now sober,
Now wild,—its happiness
In gold, and on her dress
Lays many a bright caress
As if to robe her.
The wild-birds praise her eyes
Each hour;
Above her bend the skies
And shower
Around her, there and here,
Strays of the passing year,
Azure and gold and sere
Of weed and flower.
The wood-winds kiss her hair
And wonder
What flower blossoms there:
And, under
Its deeps of acorn-brown,
Her glory and her crown,
The sunbeams lay them down,
And dream and ponder.
And I—I take her hands,
Her lover;
And kiss her where she stands;
And over
Our heads the soft winds call,
And heav’n smiles down; and all
The golden dreams of Fall
Around us hover.
SYLVIA OF THE WOODLAND
I
O you, who know our Mays that blow
The bluets by the ways;
The Indian-pink,—whose bloom you ’d think
Was blood for some wild bee to drink,—
How—can you say—in their wise way
Is it you ’re like our Mays?—
In gleam and gloom and wild perfume
Of moods that run from shade to sun:—
While in you seems the light that dreams
In thoughts of other days.