Chant For Autumn.

Veiled in visionary haze,         Behold, the ethereal autumn days         Draw near again!         In broad array,         With a low, laborious hum         These ministers of plenty come,     That seem to linger, while they steal away.         O strange, sweet charm         Of peaceful pain,     When yonder mountain's bended arm     Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain     A message to the heart that grieves,     And round us, here, a sad-hued rain     Of leaves that loosen without number     Showering falls in yellow, umber,     Red, or russet, 'thwart the stream!     Now pale Sorrow shall encumber     All too soon these lands, I deem;         Yet who at heart believes         The autumn, a false friend,         Can bring us fatal harm?     Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream     Not more uncertainly extend         Than the season that receives         A summer's latest gleam!     But the days of death advance:         They tarry not, nor turn!     I will gather the ashes of summer         In my heart, as an urn.         Oh draw thou nearer,             Thou     Spirit of the distant height,     Whither now that slender flight     Of swallows, winging, guides my sight!         The hill cloth seem to me         A fading memory             Of long delight,         And in its distant blue         Half hideth from my view     This shrinking season that must now retire;     And so shall hold it, hopeful, a desire     And knowledge old as night and always new.         Draw nigher! And, with bended brow,         I will be thy reverer         Through the long winter's term!     So, when the snows hold firm,         And the brook is dumb;         When sharp winds come         To flay the hill-tops bleak,         And whistle down the creek;         While the unhappy worm     Crawls deeper down into the ground,     To 'scape Frost's jailer on his round;         Thy form to me shall speak         From the wide valley's bound,     Recall the waving of the last bird's wing,         And help me hope for spring.