Littell's Living Age/Volume 143/Issue 1847/Autumn

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For works with similar titles, see Autumn.

Originally published in Chambers' Journal

111987Littell's Living AgeVolume 143, Issue 1847 : AutumnJ. S.

Autumn

The rich autumnal shadows fall;
     The first brown leaf wheels slowly down;
And all along the orchard wall
     The mosses gather deeper brown.

Through all the rounded golden hours
     No sound steals in from village street;
Alone the chimes from distant towers
     Float hourly through my still retreat.

Across the vale, the rugged hills
     Are starting from their summer gloom,
And bursting heather glows and fills
     Their skyward curves with purple bloom.

Again with autumn comes the time
     When you and I would cross the vale,
And reach the mountain foot, and climb
     Till stars renewed the evening tale.

I wander still where nature haunts
     Her secret places seldom sought;
But even nature something wants —
     A subtle something, deeply wrought.

And here alone I sit, and now
     Thy voice is hushed; hut those dear eyes
That flashed beneath thy brave boy-brow
     Are haunting me as daylight dies.

The sun slopes slowly to his rest,
     This soft September afternoon,
Till all the color leaves the west,
     And steeps the world in twilight gloom.