Autumn Hymn.

Warrior-winds have swept the withered leaves

   From the hill-side, and the valleys green:

By close thickets, and beneath the eaves

   Of the jutty rocks, their heaps are seen.

 

Pale and yellow from their brittle stems,

   Fell the Currant leaves, beside the wall,

So revealing the red coral gems

   On the forehead of the coming Fall.

 

Then the Aspen's trembling with death's fear,

   All the summer long, sunk down in death,

Sighing momently above their bier,

   Then whirl'd off in Autumn's growing breath.

 

Fell the Birch leaves from the slender spray;

   Hangs the tassel'd promise of the spring,

Like the hopes that cling to our decay

   When the death-winds through our strip'd boughs sing.

 

Kindling fire-like at the touch of frost,

   Died the Maple blushing as at birth;

So the old die, who have never lost

   Childhood's young flush in the dust of earth.

 

So, awakened by Life's winter-breath,

   Burns the pure flame, dim'd in summer's air,

In the heart nigh withered unto death-

   Love's fire check'd by Fortune's sultry glare.

 

Treasures shower'd from the chesnut burs

   Which stung once the fingers that would gripe,

So all Nature's own philosophers

   Teach a waiting till the fruit be ripe.

 

Sad as death's hope in a life's despair,

   Cling the withered Oak-leaves to their bough,

Not so mournful seem the wholly bare,

   As the blighted pride which keeps them now;

 

Green as life's hope in the hour of death,

   Stands the Holly, never bow'd or nip'd,

Lovelier shows it now, as human faith

   Seems more seemly illy fellowship'd.

 

Pine and Cedar and the Hemlock's cone,

   Green cathedrals of their thick boughs make,

Where the weak winds, faint with wandering, moan

   Funeral hymnings for the old year's sake.

 

And a dull haze builds up all the sky

   To a grave vault for the seasons dead,

Over whom the big sun swingeth high,

   An eternal tomb-lamp round and red.