As the autumn splendor pales
O’er our lovely hills and vales,
And the sun-god’s golden car
Sinks, on its meridian way,
Slowly southward, day by day –
From the nor’land steeps afar
We may hear the sullen jar
Of the Frost-king’s trampling steeds,
Hear his eager ban-dogs bay
In the bitter chase he leads,
Driving from the groves and meads
All our summer nymphs away!
Aster’s purple torch, that burned
In September’s glowing noon,
Stoops reversed, to ashes turned,
O’er the leaf-clogged, sad lagoon,
And a gray mist veils the sod
From the wind-swept golden-rod.
Like a child’s hope in the old,
Rising from the russet mould,
I behold
Two undaunted dandelions
Forward thrust their shields of gold,
In a sort of blithe defiance
Of the crescent night and cold.
Thistle-down and silk-weed floss –
Pallid ghosts of dead-gone things –
Round the old rocks gray with moss,
Chase each other on light wings,
Last of all the blooming train,
Stript by ruffian wind and rain,
Brave witch-hazel, o’er the ledges,
Shakes abroad her yellow tresses,
That the lingering sun caresses,
While along the wild-wood hedges
Lady birth, with white arm, lifts
Nodding tassels o’er the drifts
Of dead leaves and withered sedges.
To their foliage, brown and dense,
Cling their young oaks – with a sigh,
As the cooler gales go by –
For their deeper life’s defence,
That their strong hearts may defy
Vandal winter, whose white tents
Even now are pitched on high,
‘Mid the ramparts of the north,
Mustering his legions, thence
Southward, ruining, to rush forth.
Choked with leaves the little brooks
Give a dull and muffled sound,
And the melancholy rocks
Gather on the stubble ground,
In dark conclave to confer
On their great and grave affairs,
Like a council of Black Friars
Brooding complots sinister!
But in vain the woods may wail
And the smothered runnels sob,
North wind smite with icy flail
All the pride of hill and vale,
And our timid flower nymphs rob;
Man, the lord of wood and field,
To its rage will never yield;
Crowned with wisdom and with power
By the one All-wise and strong,
He, in nature’s dying hour,
Rises victor over wrong
With exultant soul and song.
All the treasures of the year
In his barns and cribs appear;
Garnered sunshine clothed in form,
Boundless blessings, boundless cheer,
To make frozen winter warm;
June incarnate, lush July,
Piled and trampled, roof-tree high;
August crammed in swollen bins,
With September – globed to feed
Every hungry spirit’s need
That from earth its vesture wins;
And October heap on heap,
Or red-streaming river deep,
A perpetual neon to keep,
Till a new year’s bloom begins.
Wherefore to the darkened skies
Pæans of Thanksgiving rise,
And all hearts their kindred call
To this true Hearts’ Festival!
November