AUTUMN VOICES.
Seemeth the chorus that greets the ear
A dirge for the dying hours,
That wake no more for the passing year,
Spring's voices of birds and flowers?
Or is it a psalm of love upborne
From this grateful earth of ours?
Unfold us the burden of your song,
Grasshoppers, chirping so
Tender and sweet the whole day long!
Is it of joy or woe,
The music that breathes from each blade of grass
In undertone deep and low?
Vainly I list for a jarring tone,
All is so blest to me—
From the cricket that answers, beneath the stone,
The brown toad hid in the tree,
To the tiniest insect of them all
That helps with the harmony.
Never a pause in the serenade!
Like the glory of ripened corn,
It filleth the air through sunshine and shade;
And from twilight till peep of morn
Is a rhythmical pulse in the dreamful night,
That of satisfied life seems born.
As the gold of the summer about us floats,
Soft melody crowneth the haze
Of the yellow ether with choral notes
Through these tuneful autumn days.
Speak, sphinx of the hearthstone, cricket dear!
Is the song of sorrow or praise?
Of this I am sure, that you bring to me
Thoughts the sweetest of any I know:
Of this I am sure, that you sing to me,
In minor tones tenderly low,
Of things the dearest that life has brought,
And dearest that hopes bestow.
Mary B. Dodge.