Incantation

When the leaves, by thousands thinned,     A thousand times have whirled in the wind,     And the moon, with hollow cheek,     Staring from her hollow height,     Consolation seems to seek     From the dim, reechoing night;     And the fog-streaks dead and white     Lie like ghosts of lost delight     O'er highest earth and lowest sky;     Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!     Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,     And let my bed be hung with weeds,     Growing gaunt and rank and tall,     Drooping o'er me like a pall.     Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist     Across my brow to turn and twist     Fold on fold, and leave me blind     To all save visions in the mind.     Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams     I shall slumber, and in dreams     Slide through some long glen that burns     With a crust of blood-red ferns     And brown-withered wings of brake     Like a burning lava-lake; -     So, urged to fearful, faster flow     By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk!" of the crow,     Shall pass by many a haunted rood     Of the nutty, odorous wood;     Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,     Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;     Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,     I burst aloft my watery shroud,     And upward through the ether sail     Far above the shrill wind's wail; -     But, falling thence, my soul involve     With the dust dead flowers dissolve;     And, gliding out at last to sea,     Lulled to a long tranquillity,     The perfect poise of seasons keep     With the tides that rest at neap.     So must be fulfilled the rite     That giveth me the dead year's might;     And at dawn I shall arise     A spirit, though with human eyes,     A human form and human face;     And where'er I go or stay,     There the summer's perished grace     Shall be with me, night and day.