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ODE TO AUTUMN.

Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

P. B. Shelley.

85

ODE TO AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves ru..
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cell

Who hath not seen Thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers;
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

86

ODE TO AUTUMN.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them,-thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

J. Keats.

AUTUMN WOODS.

87

AUTUMN WOODS.

ERE, in the northern gale,

The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on.

The mountains that infold

In their wide sweep the coloured landscape round,
Seem groups of giant kings in purple and gold,
That guard the enchanted ground.

I roam the woods that crown

The upland, where the mingled splendours glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.

My steps are not alone

In these bright walks; the sweet southwest at play
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown
Along the winding way.

And far in heaven, the while,

The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,—
The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade,

Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
The valleys sick with heat?

88

AUTUMN WOODS.

Let in through all the trees

Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright,
Their sunny-coloured foliage in the breeze

Twinkles, like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen,

Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
Shines with the image of its golden screen,

And glimmerings of the sun.

But 'neath yon crimson tree,

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

Oh, Autumn! why so soon
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad;
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
And leave thee wild and sad!

Ah, 'twere a lot too blest

For ever in thy coloured shades to stray,
Amidst the kisses of the soft south-west
To rove and dream for aye;

And leave the vain low strife,

That makes men mad-the tug for wealth and power,
The passions and the cares that wither life,

And waste its little hour.

William Cullen Bryant.

ODE TO AUTUMN.

89

ODE TO AUTUMN.

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge, nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?-With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?-Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey

Undazzled at noon-day,

And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer,-the green prime,-
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling, and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.

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