THE PASSING GLORY.
Slow sinks the sun,—a great carbuncle ball
Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,—
And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd.
Among her dying asters stands the Fall,
Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,
Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;
Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,
Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.
The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,
And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,
Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear;
And all around, like melancholy sand,
Rains dead leaves down—wild leaves, that mark the ebb,
In Earth's dark hour-glass, of another year.
SEPTEMBER.
The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires,
Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows
Of clematis, through which September goes,
Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,
Are flanked by hotter hues: by tawny fires
Of acrid marigolds,—that light long rows
Of lamps,—and salvias, red as day's red close,—
That torches seem,—by which the Month attires
Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen,
Towering imperial in her two-fold crown
Of harvest and of vintage; all her form
Majestic gold and purple: in her mien
The might of motherhood; her baby brown,
Abundance, high on one exultant arm.
HOODOO.
She mutters and stoops by the lone bayou—
The little green leaves are hushed on the trees—
An owl in an oak cries "Who-oh-who,"
And a fox barks back where the moon slants through
The moss that sways to a sudden breeze ...
Or That she sees.
Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"