October

Where the pluméd ranks of the Indian magic –
Whose banners waved through the summer days –
    Now pitched their tents on a thousand fields
        In a thousand scattered camps,
    Bright with the gold that the sun-fire yields,
        And brown by the starry lamps —
    Come forth in the warm autumnal air
That weaves a film o’er the great blue eye
Of the world, like a mist of revery
    Ont he upturned eye of prayer!

The piping snail in the stubble-ground,
With her whirring brood unseen around,
    Calls cheerily for her lost “Bob White!”
        While a million lives unseen
    Till all the breadth of the day & night
        With a million voices keen;
And only silence can be more still
Than their shrill, continuous moonstone,
As of slender hours by fairer blown
    In their dance on the moony hill.