An October Scene

While the rising sun was still
Marked behind the eastern hill
Hooding all the orient skies
With inimitable dyes—
Mingled gold and amethyst
And a tender emerald mist
All too subtle to obscure
The rich tintings warm and pure,—
Forth I fared in idle mood
Deep into the lovely wood
Where the giant chestnuts stood,
Roughly wrinkled, yet sublime
With the massive strength of time
All the earth, on hill and dale
Wore the Frost-Nymph’s silver veil,
As with diamond-dust aflame
Where the earliest sunbeam came.
Underfoot the pastured grass
Crumbled crispily as glass,
While the tufts of feathery woods,
Form and brake and slender reeds,
Seemed as torches of white fire
Stolen from Zeus’s chariot tire
By our new Prometheus bold—
Loss unhappy than the old.

Not a cloud obscured the view
AS the sun rode up the blue,
Save a film of luminous gray
Where the Frost-Nymph slid away,—
The last jewels of her veil
Leving but this specter pale.
Stealing down the rusty dale
Not a spirit of the air
Stirred a light-wing angular[?]
And no leaf of tawny gold
Rocked upon its fragile hold
If not where  with merry cry
A gray squirrel flickered by,
And a startled Raven fled
Hearing an invading tread.

Sway[?]-bold or fearless-fleet
Darted past my very feet
Laughing chipmunks, full of play,
Full of work, and prompt as day.
He who would their harvest share
Must drink deep the morning air!
In their swollen cheeks they showed
Tawny nuts that, load by load
In some hollow trunk they left.
On a gray rock’s yawning cleft;
Mindful of the lessons told
By the wise chipmunks of old
“In October’s golden glow
Think of Winter’s blinding snow!”
“Cheer-full, gathered one by one
To a hole-full swells anon!”
Miday on its noonward march
Toward the day’s meridian arch
The hot sun had melted through
The keen frost, and drank the dew,
And with golden arrows swift
Cut the ripened leaves adrift,
That went down without a breath,
Silent as the wings of death.
Here a golden leaf fell mute
Wavering like a parachute,
Where its mate in spirals wound
Its slow journey to the ground,
Followed now by twos and threes
Earthward floating by degrees,
Then by tens and scores pursued
Tumbling down the breathless wood.
Till at length like golden snow
Sank the leafy shower below,—
Or a million butterflies
Slowly wavering from the skies,
With a rustle so minute
Silence could not seem more mute.
Burning laughed to break the hush
Shouted “cheek;” and tossed his brush,
Dived[?] into the gathering drift,
Gay as boys and thrice as swift,
Out again and up the tree,
Lipsy with a wild-wood glee!
With a calmer joy, perchance,
I beheld the airy dance
Calmer, but I deem no less,
Drawn from deeper consciousness.
If I stood to feast the eye
On that silent pageantry
Head and shoulders caught the flight
Of gay leaves, like birds alight
If I walked, I trod the wold
Ankle deep in rustling fold.
Drifts of garnered sunshine lay
Open to the opening day
Gilded more by glory shed
Through the new rifts over head—
Where the hoary boughs laid bare
Caught the radiance streaming there
Till their gray moss seemed to glow
Like the ravished leaves below.

Slowly fell the glimmering shower
Through the deep bush, hour by hour,—
For, through all, the breezes slept,—
And before the shadows crept
Eastward, the whole wood was bare
Save a huge Oak here and there
Lifting its defiant head
Helmeted in somber red
Strewn around me, far and wide,
Lay the summer’s fallen pride
Beautiful in death, as one whose appointed tasks as done.

Homeward as I turned to go
Through that fleece of golden snow
Something in the blue o’er head,
Or the gleam around me, said:
“If the Earth and wealth receives
From the falling of the leaves
And a beauty so serene Marks the Summer’s final scene
Why may not the ripened soul
Standing at the mortal goal
Shed its transient vesture thus,
Grandly calm and glorious
In a pangless Exodus?”

Sooth against the tide of years
Faithful the old Tree appears!
Showing Trust in every bud
And in all its hueless blood,
That I spite of storm and fail
Spring and summer shall not fail.
With its leaves about its feet,
Like a gorgeous winding sheet,
Deep within its rugged bark
The old life lies warm and dark,
Ready, maugre moons between,
To renew its gold and green
Soon as April shifts the scene!