By An Autumn Stream

Now overhead,     Where the rivulet loiters and stops,     The bittersweet hangs from the tops     Of the alders and cherries     Its bunches of beautiful berries,     Orange and red.     And the snowbirds flee,     Tossing up on the far brown field,     Now flashing and now concealed,     Like fringes of spray     That vanish and gleam on the gray     Field of the sea.     Flickering light,     Come the last of the leaves down borne,     And patches of pale white corn     In the wind complain,     Like the slow rustle of rain     Noticed by night.     Withered and thinned,     The sentinel mullein looms,     With the pale gray shadowy plumes     Of the goldenrod;     And the milkweed opens its pod,     Tempting the wind.     Aloft on the hill,     A cloudrift opens and shines     Through a break in its gorget of pines,     And it dreams at my feet     In a sad, silvery sheet,     Utterly still.     All things that be     Seem plunged into silence, distraught,     By some stern, some necessitous thought:     It wraps and enthralls     Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls     Also on me.