A November Sketch.

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,      And the worm-fence's straggling length,      Smote by the morning's slanted strength,     Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.     To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,      And silently and sadly lifts      The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts     Them wadded down the woodland walks.     Reluctantly and one by one      The worthless leaves sift slowly down,      And thro' the mournful vistas blown     Drop rustling, and their rest is won.     Where stands the brook beneath its fall,      Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,      And on the pebbles scattered 'round     The ooze is frozen; one and all     White as rare crystals shining fair.      There stirs no life: the faded wood      Mourns sighing, and the solitude     Seems shaken with a mighty care.     Decay and silence sadly drape      The vigorous limbs of oldest trees,      The rotting leaves and rocks whose knees     Are shagged with moss, with misty crape.     To sullenness the surly crow      All his derisive feeling yields,      And o'er the barren stubble-fields     Flaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.     The eve comes on: the teasel stoops      Its spike-crowned head before the blast;      The tattered leaves drive whirling past     Like skeletons in whistling troops.     The pithy elder copses sigh;      Their broad blue combs with berries weighed,      Like heavy pendulums are swayed     With ev'ry gust that hurries by.     Thro' matted walls of tangled brier      That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust      Their scarlet torches red as rust,     Burning with flames of stolid fire.     The evening's here - cold, hard, and drear;      The lavish West with bullion bright      Of molten silver walls the night     Far as one star's thin rays appear.     Wedged toward the West's cold luridness      The wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes;      The wild cry of the leader comes     Distant and harsh with loneliness.     The pale West dies, and in its cup      Bubble on bubble pours the night:      The East glows with a mystic light;     The stars are keen; the moon is up.