Late October.

Ah, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes,     What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold, Cast Tyrian purple o'er broad-shouldered woods,     And to your pride anointed empire sold For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods     Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold? Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep,     Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush Flames - when the winds armsful of motion heap     In wincing gusts upon it - amber blush; The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep     Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush. Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose,     Rose cameo, in day's gray, somber spar Of smoky quartz - intaglioed beauty - glows     Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are Vast organs antheming the winds' wild woes     A faded sun and pale night's paler star. Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls,     And by its gnarly saucer in the streams Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum balls     Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams; Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls     Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams. Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk     Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed's puff Along the orchard's fence, where in the dusk     And ashen weeds, - as some grim Satyr's rough Red, breezy cheeks burn thro' his beard, - the brusque     Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above. Runs thro' the wasted leaves the crickets' click,     Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers; One bird unto the sumach flits to pick     Red, sour seeds; and thro' the woods one hears The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick     Looms tawny in the field where low the steers. Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked,     The birds to Echo's shores, where flossy foams Boom low long cream-white cliffs. - Where once buzzed     Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms, One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked, - rocked     A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs. Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly     A leafy storm of stars about you breaks - Some Hamadryad's tears: Unto her knee     Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks Thro' wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike     Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.