Autumn

Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,

Yet haply not incapable of joy,

Sweet Autumn! I thee hail

With welcome all unfeigned;

And oft as morning from her lattice peeps

To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee

To drink the dewy breath

Of fields left fragrant then,

In solitudes, where no frequented paths

But what thy own foot makes betray thy home,

Stealing obtrusive there

To meditate thy end:

By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,

With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,

Which woo the winds to play,

And with them dance for joy;

And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,

Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,

On which, as wont, the fly

Oft battens in the sun;

Where leans the mossy willow half way oer,

On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw

His angle, clear of weeds

That crowd the water's brim;

Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,

Where step by step the patient lonely boy

Hath cut rude flights of stairs

To climb their steepy sides;

Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,

The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed,

And struggles through the weeds

With faint and sullen brawl.

These haunts I long have favoured, more as now

With thee thus wandering, moralizing on,

Stealing glad thoughts from grief,

And happy, though I sigh.

Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,

And raiment shadowy of each wind's embrace,

Fain would I win thine harp

To one accordant theme;

Now not inaptly craved, communing thus,

Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,

While pillowed on the grass,

We fondly ruminate

Oer the disordered scenes of woods and fields,

Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,

Pastures tracked deep with cows,

Where small birds seek for seed:

Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills

His frequent, unpremeditated song,

Wooing the winds to pause,

Till echo brawls again;

As on with plashy step, and clouted shoon,

He roves, half indolent and self-employed,

To rob the little birds

Of hips and pendent haws,

And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,

And rambling bramble-berries, pulp and sweet,

Arching their prickly trails

Half oer the narrow lane:

Noting the hedger front with stubborn face

The dank blea wind, that whistles thinly by

His leathern garb, thorn proof,

And cheek red hot with toil.

While oer the pleachy lands of mellow brown,

The mower's stubbling scythe clogs to his foot

The ever eking whisp,

With sharp and sudden jerk,

Till into formal rows the russet shocks

Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weathered barns,

And hovels rude repair,

Stript by disturbing winds.

See! from the rustling scythe the haunted hare

Scampers circuitous, with startled ears

Prickt up, then squat, as bye

She brushes to the woods,

Where reeded grass, breast-high and undisturbed,

Forms pleasant clumps, through which the soothing winds

Soften her rigid fears,

And lull to calm repose.

Wild sorceress! me thy restless mood delights,

More than the stir of summer's crowded scenes,

Where, jostled in the din,

Joy palled my ear with song;

Heart-sickening for the silence that is thine,

Not broken inharmoniously, as now

That lone and vagrant bee

Booms faint with wearp chime.

Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods

In tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath,

Some sickly cankered leaf

Let go its hold, and die.

And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,

In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,

Thee urging to thine end,

Sore wept by troubled skies.

And yet, sublime in grief, thy thoughts delight

To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,

Haply forgetting now

They but prepare thy shroud;

Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,

Improvident of waste, till every bough

Burns with thy mellow touch

Disorderly divine.

Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream

Droop faintly, and so sicken for thine end,

As sad the winds sink low

In dirges for their queen;

While in the moment of their weary pause,

To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark

Starts from his shielding clod,

Snatching sweet scraps of song.

Thy life is waning now, and silence tries

To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds.

As stooping low she bends,

Forming with leaves thy grave;

To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,

Till parch-lipped summer pines in drought away,

Then from thine ivied trance

Awake to glories new.

Summer Images

Now swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned,

Precedence takes of rosy fingered spring;

And laughing joy, with wild flowers pranked and crowned,

A wild and giddy thing,

And health robust, from every care unbound,

Come on the zephyr's wing,

And cheer the toiling clown.

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,

Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell,"

Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;

And where the troubled dwell,

Thy witching smiles wean them of half their cares;

And from thy sunny spell,

They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,

And mantle laced with gems of garish light,

Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,

And in the world's despite,

Share the rude mirth that thy own heart beguiles:

If haply so I might

Win pleasure from thy smiles,

Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,

In nightly revels or in city streets;

But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,

That one at leisure meets

In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,

Or fields, where bee-fly greets

The ears with mellow horn.

The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,

Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;

There bees go courting every flower that's ripe,

On baulks and sunny banks;

And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,

Attempts to give God thanks

In no discordant tune.

There speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,

There sings unto himself for joy's amends,

And drinks the honey dew of solitude.

There happiness attends

With inbred joy until the heart oerflow,

Of which the world's rude friends,

Nought heeding, nothing know.

There the gay river, laughing as it goes,

Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,

And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows

What pleasure there abides,

To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:

Spots solitude provides

To muse, and happy be.

There ruminating neath some pleasant bush,

On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,

Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;

And, acting as I please,

Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,

Mark the wind-shaken trees,

And cloud-betravelled sky.

And think me how some barter joy for care,

And waste life's summer-health in riot rude,

Of nature, nor of nature's sweets aware;

Where passions vain and rude

By calm reflection, softened are and still;

And the heart's better mood

Feels sick of doing ill.

There I can live, and at my leisure seek

Joys far from cold restraints--not fearing pride--

Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek

Rude health, so long denied.

Here poor integrity can sit at ease,

And list self-satisfied

The song of honey-bees;

And green lane traverse heedless where it goes

Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies

Rude battered finger post, that stooping shows

Where the snug mystery lies;

And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,

Clears up the short surprise,

And shows a peeping town.

I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn

Of beauty, feeding on joy's luscious hours;

The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn,

Agape for honey showers;

And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew

Of morning's early hours,

Like gold yminted new;

And mark by rustic bridge, oer shallow stream,

Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,

Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;

Who now, in gestures wild,

Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,

Feeling self-gratified,

Nor fearing human thrall:

Then thread the sunny valley laced with streams,

Or forests rude, and the oershadowed brims

Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams,

And streaks his listless limbs;

Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long,

Where joy's wild impulse swims

In one continued song.

I love at early morn, from new mown swath,

To see the startled frog his route pursue;

To mark while, leaping oer the dripping path,

His bright sides scatter dew,

The early lark that, from its bustle flies,

To hail his matin new;

And watch him to the skies:

To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,

The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,

With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,

Frail brother of the morn,

That from the tiny bents and misted leaves

Withdraws his timid horn,

And fearful vision weaves:

Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,

Wont to be first unsealing morning's eye,

Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop

Of honey on his thigh;

To see him seek morn's airy couch to sing,

Until the golden sky

Bepaint his russet wing:

And sawning boy by tanning corn espy,

With clapping noise to startle birds away,

And hear him bawl to every passer by

To know the hour of day;

And see the uncradled breeze, refreshed and strong,

With waking blossoms play,

And breathe eolian song.

I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,

And not the less when sudden drops of rain

Moisten my pallid cheek from ebon cloud,

Threatening soft showers again,

That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,

Summer's sweet breath unchain,

And wake harmonious sounds.

Rich music breathes in summer's every sound;

And in her harmony of varied greens,

Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around

Much beauty intervenes,

Filling with harmony the ear and eye;

While oer the mingling scenes

Far spreads the laughing sky.

And wind-enamoured aspin--mark the leaves

Turn up their silver lining to the sun,

And list! the brustling noise, that oft deceives,

And makes the sheep-boy run;

The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,

He thinks the rain begun,

And hastes to sheltering bowers.

But now the evening curdles dank and grey,

Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed;

And moping owls, to close the lids of day,

On drowsy wing proceed;

While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,

Light's farewell inly heed,

And give it parting song.

The pranking bat its nighty circlet makes;

The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew

Oer meadows dew-besprent; and beetle wakes

Enquiries ever new,

Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,

As wanting to pursue

His homeward path again.

Hark to the melody of distant bells

That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds

By fitful starts, then musically swells

Oer the dun stilly grounds;

While on the meadow bridge the pausing boy

Listens the mellow sounds,

And hums in vacant joy.

Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round

His evening faggot, and with every stride

His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound.

Till silly sheep beside

His path start tremulous, and once again

Look back dissatisfied,

Then scour the dewy plain.

How sweet the soothing calm that smoothly stills

Oer the heart's every sense its opiate dews,

In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!

That softens and subdues,

With gentle quiet's bland and sober train,

Which dreamy eve renews

In many a mellow strain.

I love to walk the fields, they are to me

A legacy no evil can destroy;

They, like a spell, set every rapture free

That cheered me when a boy.

Play--pastime--all time's blotting pen concealed,

Comes like a new-born joy,

To greet me in the field.

For nature's objects ever harmonize

With emulous taste, that vulgar deed annoys;

It loves in quiet moods to sympathize,

And meet vibrating joys

Oer nature's pleasant things; nor will it deem

Pastime the muse employs

A vain obtrusive theme.