Poems (May)/October twilight
OCTOBER TWILIGHT.
Oh mute among the months, October, thou,
Like a hot reaper when the sun goes down
Reposing in the twilight of the year!
Is yon the silver glitter of thy scythe
Drawn thread-like on the west? September comes
Humming those waifs of song June's choral days
Left in the forest, but thy tuneless lips
Breathe only a pervading haze that seems
Visible silence, and thy Sabbath face
Scares swart November, from yon northern hills
Foreboding like a raven. Yellow ferns
Make thee a couch; thou sittest listless there,
Plucking red leaves for idleness; full streams
Coil to thy feet where fawns that come at noon
Drink with upglancing eyes.
Upon this knoll,
Studded with long-stemmed maples, ever first
To take the breeze, I have lain summer hours,
Seeing the blue sky only, and the light
Shifting from leaf to leaf. Tree-top and trunk
Now lift so steadily, the airiest spray
Seems painted on the azure. Evening comes
Up from the valley; over-lapping hills,
Tipped by the sunset, burn like funeral lamps
For the dead day; no pomp of tinsel clouds
Breaks the pure hyaline the mountains gird—
A gem without a flaw—but sharply drawn
On its transparent edge, a single tree
That has cast down its drapery of leaves,
Stands like an athlete with broad arms outstretched,
As if to keep November's winds at bay.
Below, on poised wings, a hovering mist
Follows the course of streams; the air grows thick
Over the dells. Mark how the wind, like one
That gathers simples, flits from herb to herb,
Through the damp valley, muttering the while
Low incantations! From the wooded lanes
Loiters a bell's dull tinkle, keeping time
To the slow tread of kine; and I can see
By the rude trough the waters overbrim
The unyoked oxen gathered; some, athirst,
Stoop drinking steadily, and some have linked
Their horns in playful war. Roads climb the hills,
Divide the forests, and break off, abrupt,
At the horizon; hither, from below
There comes a sound of lumbering, jarring wheels,
The sound just struggles up the steep ascent,
Then drones off in the distance. Nearer still,
A rifle's rattling charge starts up the echoes,
That flutter like scared birds, and pause awhile
As on suspended wings, ere sinking slow
To their low nests. I can distinguish now
The labourer returning from his toil
With shouldered spade, and weary, laggard foot;
The cattle straying down the dusty road;
The sportsman, balancing his idle gun,
Whistling a light refrain, while close beside
His hound with trailing ears, and muzzle dropt,
Follows some winding scent. From the gray east,
Twilight, up-glancing with dim fearful eyes,
Warns me away.
The dusk sits like a bird
Up in the tree-tops, and swart, elvish shadows
Dart from the wooded pathways. Wraith of day!
Through thy transparent robes the stars are plain;
Along those swelling mounds that look like graves,
Where flowers grow thick in June, thy step falls soft
As the dropt leaves; amid the faded brakes
The wind, retreating, hides, and cowering there,
Whines at thy coming like a hound afraid.
Like a hot reaper when the sun goes down
Reposing in the twilight of the year!
Is yon the silver glitter of thy scythe
Drawn thread-like on the west? September comes
Humming those waifs of song June's choral days
Left in the forest, but thy tuneless lips
Breathe only a pervading haze that seems
Visible silence, and thy Sabbath face
Scares swart November, from yon northern hills
Foreboding like a raven. Yellow ferns
Make thee a couch; thou sittest listless there,
Plucking red leaves for idleness; full streams
Coil to thy feet where fawns that come at noon
Drink with upglancing eyes.
Upon this knoll,
Studded with long-stemmed maples, ever first
To take the breeze, I have lain summer hours,
Seeing the blue sky only, and the light
Shifting from leaf to leaf. Tree-top and trunk
Now lift so steadily, the airiest spray
Seems painted on the azure. Evening comes
Up from the valley; over-lapping hills,
Tipped by the sunset, burn like funeral lamps
For the dead day; no pomp of tinsel clouds
Breaks the pure hyaline the mountains gird—
A gem without a flaw—but sharply drawn
On its transparent edge, a single tree
That has cast down its drapery of leaves,
Stands like an athlete with broad arms outstretched,
As if to keep November's winds at bay.
Below, on poised wings, a hovering mist
Follows the course of streams; the air grows thick
Over the dells. Mark how the wind, like one
That gathers simples, flits from herb to herb,
Through the damp valley, muttering the while
Low incantations! From the wooded lanes
Loiters a bell's dull tinkle, keeping time
To the slow tread of kine; and I can see
By the rude trough the waters overbrim
The unyoked oxen gathered; some, athirst,
Stoop drinking steadily, and some have linked
Their horns in playful war. Roads climb the hills,
Divide the forests, and break off, abrupt,
At the horizon; hither, from below
There comes a sound of lumbering, jarring wheels,
The sound just struggles up the steep ascent,
Then drones off in the distance. Nearer still,
A rifle's rattling charge starts up the echoes,
That flutter like scared birds, and pause awhile
As on suspended wings, ere sinking slow
To their low nests. I can distinguish now
The labourer returning from his toil
With shouldered spade, and weary, laggard foot;
The cattle straying down the dusty road;
The sportsman, balancing his idle gun,
Whistling a light refrain, while close beside
His hound with trailing ears, and muzzle dropt,
Follows some winding scent. From the gray east,
Twilight, up-glancing with dim fearful eyes,
Warns me away.
The dusk sits like a bird
Up in the tree-tops, and swart, elvish shadows
Dart from the wooded pathways. Wraith of day!
Through thy transparent robes the stars are plain;
Along those swelling mounds that look like graves,
Where flowers grow thick in June, thy step falls soft
As the dropt leaves; amid the faded brakes
The wind, retreating, hides, and cowering there,
Whines at thy coming like a hound afraid.