From shy expectancy to burgeoning,
From burgeoning to ripeness and decline,
The seasons run their various course and bring
Again at last the sober days benign.
And spring's pied garland, worn for Beauty's sake,
And summer's crown of pride, less fair appear
Than the subdued, enchanted tints that make
The aureole of the senescent year.
So grows the good man old—meek, glad, sublime;
More lovely than in all his youthful bloom,
Grander than in the vigor of his prime,
He lights with radiance life's autumnal gloom,
And through the fading avenue of Time
Walks in triumphal glory to his tomb.
AN AUTUMN WALK.
Adown the track that skirts the shallow stream
I wandered with blank mind; a bypath drew
My aimless steps aside, and, ere I knew,
The forest closed around me like a dream.
The gold-strewn sward, the horizontal gleam
Of the low sun, pouring its splendors through
The far-withdrawing vistas, filled the view,
And everlasting beauty was supreme.
I knew not past or future; 'twas a mood
Transcending time and taking in the whole.
I was both young and old; my lost childhood,
Years yet unlived, were gathered round one goal;
And death was there familiar. Long I stood,
And in eternity renewed my soul.
NOVEMBER.
Sombre November, least belov'd of all
The months that make the pleasurable year,
Too late for the resplendence of the fall,
Too soon for Christmas-bringing winter's cheer;
Ignoble interregnum following
The golden cycle of a good queen's reign,
Before her heir, proclaimed already king,
Has come of age to rule in her domain;
We do not praise you; many a dreary day
Impatiently we chide your laggard pace;
Backward we look, and forward, and we say:
The queen was kind and fair of form and face;
The king is stern, but clad in brave array:
God save His Majesty and send him grace.