A Day

Talk not of sad November, when a day     Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,     And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,     Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.     On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines     Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,     Singing a pleasant song of summer still,     A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.     Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,     In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;     But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,     And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.     Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high     Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,     Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow     And jay and nut-hatch winters threat defy.     O gracious beauty, ever new and old!     O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dear     When the low sunshine warns the closing year     Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold!     Close to my heart I fold each lovely thing     The sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate,     With the calm patience of the woods I wait     For leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring!