A Dream Of Autumn.

Mellow hazes, lowly trailing         Over wood and meadow, veiling         Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing             Sailor-like to foreign lands;         And the north-wind overleaping         Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping         Wrecks of roses where the weeping             Willows wring their helpless hands.         Flared, like Titan torches flinging             Flakes of flame and embers, springing         From the vale the trees stand swinging             In the moaning atmosphere;         While in dead'ning-lands the lowing         Of the cattle, sadder growing,         Fills the sense to overflowing             With the sorrow of the year.         Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter         Sings the brook in rippled meter         Under boughs that lithely teeter             Lorn birds, answering from the shores         Through the viny, shady-shiny         Interspaces, shot with tiny         Flying motes that fleck the winy             Wave-engraven sycamores.         Fields of ragged stubble, wrangled         With rank weeds, and shocks of tangled         Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled             Over Harvest's battle-piain;         And the sudden whir and whistle         Of the quail that, like a missile,         Whizzes over thorn and thistle,             And, a missile, drops again.         Muffled voices, hid in thickets         Where the redbird stops to stick its         Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets             Of the truant's rustic trap;         And the sound of laughter ringing         Where, within the wild-vine swinging,         Climb Bacchante's schoolmates, flinging             Purple clusters in her lap.         Rich as wine, the sunset flashes         Round the tilted world, and dashes         Up the sloping west and splashes             Red foam over sky and sea -         Till my dream of Autumn, paling         In the splendor all-prevailing,         Like a sallow leaf goes sailing             Down the silence solemnly.