I SAW Old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Where are the songs of Summer? With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Where are the blooms of Summer?-In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,-the green prime,-
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling, and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey bees have stored
The sweets of summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing'd across the main ;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,
With the last leaves for a love-rosary ;
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drowned past
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, grey upon the grey.
O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair;
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
To make her bower, and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
ent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, mth of heart, and fervency of mind, large late love of all thy kind,
world's cold practice and Time's tooth,se gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, give thee joy, or bid thee blind
that thou hast not resign'd nate fire and freshness of thy youth: current of thy life shall flow, shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, low'ry valley or unwholesome fen, ssed in thy joy, or in thy woe sed of thy race,-thou art ordain'd beyond the lot of common men.
ADY, wouldst thou heiress be
To Winter's cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,
Thou dost still lock up thy heart;hou that shouldst outlast the snow, ut in the whiteness of thy brow?
corn and cold neglect are made
For winter gloom and winter wind,
ut thou wilt wrong the summer air,
Breathing it to words unkind,-
reath which only should belong
o love, to sunlight, and to song!
THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave-under the deep deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush'd-no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyæna, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,-
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.
WRITTEN IN KEATS' "ENDYMION."
I SAW pale Dian, sitting by the brink
Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains
From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think
Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains
And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps
In dear remembrance,-lonely, and forlorn,
Singing it to herself until she weeps
Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn :—
And as I mused, in dull imaginings,
There came a flash of garments, and I knew
The awful Muse by her harmonious wings
Charming the air to music as she flew
Anon there rose an echo through the vale
Gave back Endymion in a dreamlike tale.
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