The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,
And the worm-fence's straggling length,
Smote by the morning's slanted strength,
Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.
To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,
And silently and sadly lifts
The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts
Them wadded down the woodland walks.
Reluctantly and one by one
The worthless leaves sift slowly down,
And thro' the mournful vistas blown
Drop rustling, and their rest is won.
Where stands the brook beneath its fall,
Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,
And on the pebbles scattered 'round
The ooze is frozen; one and all
White as rare crystals shining fair.
There stirs no life: the faded wood
Mourns sighing, and the solitude
Seems shaken with a mighty care.
Decay and silence sadly drape
The vigorous limbs of oldest trees,
The rotting leaves and rocks whose knees
Are shagged with moss, with misty crape.
To sullenness the surly crow
All his derisive feeling yields,
And o'er the barren stubble-fields
Flaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.
The eve comes on: the teasel stoops
Its spike-crowned head before the blast;
The tattered leaves drive whirling past
Like skeletons in whistling troops.
The pithy elder copses sigh;
Their broad blue combs with berries weighed,
Like heavy pendulums are swayed
With ev'ry gust that hurries by.
Thro' matted walls of tangled brier
That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust
Their scarlet torches red as rust,
Burning with flames of stolid fire.
The evening's here--cold, hard, and drear;
The lavish West with bullion bright
Of molten silver walls the night
Far as one star's thin rays appear.
Wedged toward the West's cold luridness
The wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes;
The wild cry of the leader comes
Distant and harsh with loneliness.
The pale West dies, and in its cup
Bubble on bubble pours the night:
The East glows with a mystic light;
The stars are keen; the moon is up.
