Selections from the American Poets/Autumn Musings
AUTUMN MUSINGS.
Come, thou with me! If thou hast worn awayAll this most glorious summer in the crowd,Amid the dust of cities, and the din,While birds were carolling on every spray;If, from gray dawn to solemn night's approach,Thy soul hath wasted all its better thoughts,Toiling and panting for a little gold;Drudging amid the very lees of lifeFor this accursed slave that makes men slaves;Come thou with me into the pleasant fields,Let Nature breathe on us and make us free!
For thou shalt hold communion, pure and high,With the great Spirit of the Universe;It shall pervade thy soul; it shall renewThe fancies of thy boyhood: thou shalt knowTears, most unwonted tears dimming thine eyes;Thou shalt forget, under the old brown oak,That the good south-wind and the liberal westHave other tidings than the songs of birds,Or the soft news wafted from fragrant flowers.Look out on Nature's face, and what hath sheIn common with thy feelings? That brown hill,Upon whose sides, from the gray mountain ash,We gather'd crimson berries, look'd as brownWhen the leaves fell twelve autumn suns ago;This pleasant stream, with the well-shaded verge,On whose fair surface have our buoyant limbsSo often play'd, caressing and caress'd;Its verdant banks are green as then they were,So went its bubbling murmur down the tide.Yes, and the very trees, those ancient oaks,The crimson-crested maple, feathery elm,And fair, smooth ash, with leaves of graceful gold,Look like familiar faces of old friends.
From their broad branches drop the wither'd leaves,Drop, one by one, without a single breath,Save when some eddying curl round the old rootsTwirls them about in merry sport a while.They are not changed; their office is not done;The first soft breeze of spring shall see them freshWith sprouting twigs bursting from every branch,As should fresh feelings from our wither'd hearts.Scorn not the moral for, while these have warm'dTo annual beauty, gladdening the fieldsWith new and ever-glorious garniture,Thou hast grown worn and wasted, almost grayEven in thy very summer. 'Tis for thisWe have neglected nature! Wearing outOur hearts and all life's dearest charitiesIn the perpetual turmoil, when we needTo strengthen and to purify our mindsAmid the venerable woods; to holdChaste converse with the fountains and the winds!So should we elevate our souls; so beReady to stand and act a nobler partIn the hard, heartless struggles of the world.
Day wanes; 'tis autumn eventide again;And, sinking on the blue hills' breast, the sunSpreads the large bounty of his level blaze,Lengthening the shades of mountains and tall trees,And throwing blacker shadows o'er the sheetOf this dark stream, in whose unruffled tideWaver the bank-shrub and the graceful elm,As the gay branches and their trembling leavesCatch the soft whisper of the coming air:So doth it mirror every passing cloud,And those which fill the chambers of the westWith such strange beauty, fairer than all thrones,Blazon'd with orient gems and barbarous gold.I see thy full heart gathering in thine eyes;I see those eyes swelling with precious tears;But, if thou couldst have look'd upon this scene With a cold brow, and then turn'd back to thoughtsOf traffic in thy fellow's wretchedness,Thou wert not fit to gaze upon the faceOf Nature's naked beauty, most unfitTo look on fairer things, the lovelinessOf earth's most lovely daughters, whose glad formsAnd glancing eyes do kindle the great soulsOf better men to emulate pure thoughts,And, in high action, all ennobling deeds.But lo! the harvest moon! She climbs as fairAmong the cluster'd jewels of the sky,As, mid the rosy bowers of paradise,Her soft light, trembling upon leaf and flower,Smiled o'er the slumbers of the first-born man.And, while her beauty is upon our hearts,Now let us seek our quiet home, that sleepMay come without bad dreams; may come as lightAs to that yellow-headed cottage-boy,Whose serious musings, as he homeward drivesHis sober herd, are of the frosty dawn,And the ripe nuts which his own hand shall pluck.Then, when the bird, high-courier of the morn,Looks from his airy vantage o'er the world,And, by the music of his mounting flight,Tells many blessed things of gushing gold,Coming in floods o'er the eastern wave,Will we arise, and our pure orisonsShall keep us in the trials of the day.