Poems of Nature (Thoreau)/Nature's Child

by Henry David Thoreau

For other versions of this work, see Nature's Child.

NATURE'S CHILD

I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter's moon,
Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
⁠I am all sere and yellow,
⁠And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief.