Tell me not here, it needs not saying,

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,     What tune the enchantress plays     In aftermaths of soft September     Or under blanching mays,     For she and I were long acquainted     And I knew all her ways.     On russet floors, by waters idle,     The pine lets fall its cone;     The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing     In leafy dells alone;     And travelers joy beguiles in autumn     Hearts that have lost their own.     On acres of the seeded grasses     The changing burnish heaves;     Or marshalled under moons of harvest     Stand still all night the sheaves;     Or beeches strip in storms for winter     And stain the wind with leaves.     Possess, as I possessed a season,     The countries I resign,     Where over elmy plains the highway     Would mount the hills and shine,     And full of shade the pillared forest     Would murmur and be mine.     For nature, heartless, witless nature,     Will neither care nor know     What strangers feet may find the meadow     And trespass there and go,     Nor ask amid the dews of morning     If they are mine or no.