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.