Songs and Sonnets (Coleman)/Indian Summer
INDIAN SUMMER.
Of all Earth's varied, lovely moods.
The loveliest is when she broods
Among her dreaming solitudes
On Indian Summer days;
When on the hill the aster pales,
And Summer's stress of passion fails,
And Autumn looks through misty veils
Along her leafy ways.
How deep the tenderness that yearns
Within the silent wood that turns
From green to gold, and slowly burns
As by some inward fire!
How dear the sense that all things wild
Have been at last by love beguiled
To join one chorus, reconciled
In satisfied desire!
The changing hillside, wrapped in dreams,
With softest opalescent gleams,
Like some ethereal vision seems,
Outlined against the sky;
The fields that gave the harvest gold—
Afar before our eyes unrolled
In purple distance, fold on fold—
Lovely and tranquil lie.
We linger by the crimson vine,
Steeped to the heart with fragrant wine,
And where the rowan-berries shine,
And gentians lift their blue;
We stay to hear the wind that grieves
Among the oak's crisp, russet leaves,
And watch the moving light, that weaves
Quaint patterns, peering through.
The fires that in the maples glow,
The rapture that the beeches know,
The smoke-wraiths drifting to and fro,
Each season more endears;
Vague longings in the heart arise,
A dimming mist comes to the eyes
That is not sadness, though it lies
Close to the place of tears.
We share the ecstasy profound
That broods in everything around,
And by the wilderness are crowned—
Its silent worship know.
O when our Indian Summer days
Divide the parting of the ways,
May we, too, linger here in praise
Awhile before we go!