The low, wild, shivering music of the leaves,
That move like ripples on a silver sea,
Sinking and swelling ever, as it heaves
Soft wavering sighs of pensive melody.
When, too, the yellow-garbed October comes,
With breezy days, and grand, wild, moonlight nights;
When louder every busy insect hums
The requiem of its day so short and bright;
And when men love the sunshine, not the shade,
Sitting at noon beneath the leafless vine,
That in the summer dewy coolness made,
And bore the flowers that Beauty loved to twine.
Even the chill November throws sometimes
Aside her cloudy mantle, and looks out
With a warm azure sky, tempting the chimes
Of lingering birds and childhood's merry shout.
But must we close the window; we can lie
Snug in our easy chairs, and read or dream,
Musing how oft the seasons hurry by,
Leaving us ever farther down life's stream.
O if the autumn of our life came on
Prepared for winter like the fading year,
With plenty stored, and summer labor done,
There would be little in old age to fear.
Youth's feverish pulses would have grown more cold,
Its dark locks braided with some threads of gray;
But the wise heart, like wine that has grown old,
Gains without losing by the long delay.
