AUTUMN

JAMES A. GARFIELD ’56[1]

  Old Autumn thou art here! upon the Earth
  And in the heavens, the signs of death are hung;
  For o’er the Earth’s brown breast stalks pale decay,
  And ’mong the lowering clouds the wild winds wail,
  And, sighing sadly, chant the solemn dirge
  O’er summer’s fairest flowers, all faded now. 
  The Winter god, descending from the skies,
  Has reached the mountain tops, and decked their brows
  With glittering frosty crowns, and breathed his breath
  Among the trumpet pines, that herald forth
  His coming.

              Before the driving blast
  The mountain oak bows down his hoary head,
  And flings his withered locks to the rough gales
  That fiercely roar among the branches bare,
  Uplifted to the dark unpitying heavens. 
  The skies have put their mourning garments on
  And hung their funeral drapery on the clouds. 
  Dead Nature soon will wear her shroud of snow
  And lie entombed in Winter’s icy grave.

Thus passes life.  As hoary age comes on
The joys of youth—­bright beauties of the spring,
Grow dim and faded, and the long dark night
Of Death’s chill Winter comes.  But as the spring
Rebuilds the ruined wrecks of Winter’s waste,
And cheers the gloomy earth with joyous light,
So o’er the tomb, the Star of Hope shall rise,
And usher in an ever during day.

Quarterly, 1854.

[Footnote 1:  Died 1881.]

IN THE FOREST

ANON.

  We lie beneath the forest shade
    Whose sunny tremors dapple us;
  She is a proud-eyed Grecian maid
    And I am Sardanapalus;
  A king uncrowned whose sole allegiance
  Resides in dusky forest regions.

  How cool and liquid seems the sky;
    How blue and still the distance is! 
  White fleets of cloud at anchor lie
    And mute are all existences,
  Save here and there a bird that launches
  A shaft of song among the branches.

  Within this alien realm of shade
    We keep a sylvan Passover;
  We happy twain, a wayward maid,
    A careless, gay philosopher;
  But unto me she seems a Venus
  And Paphian grasses nod between us.

  Her drooping eyelids half conceal
    A vague, uncertain mystery;
  Her tender glances half reveal
    A sad, impassioned history;
  A tale of hopes and fears unspoken
  Of thoughts that die and leave no token.

  “Oh braid a wreath of budding sprays
    And crown me queen,” the maiden says;
  “Queen of the shadowy woodland ways,
    And wandering winds, whose cadences
  Are unto thee that tale repeating
  Which I must perish while secreting!”

  I wove a wreath of leaves and buds
    And flowers with golden chalices,
  And crowned her queen of summer woods
    And dreamy forest palaces;
  Queen of that realm whose tender story
  Makes life a splendor, death a glory.