Say not, “the melancholy days are come!”
When the ripe year, with golden glory ensured,
Goes, full of fatness, to his harvest home,
Strewing rich bounties o’er the sallow ground.
The flying leaves may wall the summers past,
But the new buds acoming June forsee;
The bright flowers perish, but the fruit blands fast
The old year’s wealth o’er germs of years to be.
The vanished birds that seek the eternal graves
Keep the warm memory of our hills, even then;
Through tropic splendors the gray nest is seen,
And the young lilacs in the hedges bare.
The barking squirrel, flickering through the trees,
Spans the near winter with an arch of trust,
Buttressed on bright hereafters; he, too, sees,
And works the merrier for the icy gust.
The torrid bee, with links of liquid gold,
Weds pale October to the blue-eyed May;
And hums a faint, low melody in his hold, –
“I lose no summer while the world is gray.”
A million olives, that all the summer long
Made but a twinkle in the luminous air,
Have built in myriad cells their fortress strong,
And sleep the sleep of faithful atoms there.
All fields are grand with new life’s prophecies, –
All loaded with fulfillments of the old;
The pontiff hills put on their gorgeousness
To serve at altars lit with flames of gold.
In purpling vapors from their censers borne
Dim and majestic stand the solemn woods,
Preaching in death the resurrection morn,
And the brave faith that every leaf-bud broods..
The very air is rich with pensiveness,
Sad but as love is, – with excess of sweet;
The glory lingers, as the day grows less,
To set heaven’s banner where the two world’s nest.
The golden Sabbath of the year is come!
The days of garnered life intense and deep;
Prophetic hour when every creature dumb
Points to a joyous waking after sleep!
Autumnal Prophecies