Quiet Lanes

Now rests the season in forgetfulness,Careless in beauty of maturity;The ripened roses round brown temples, sheFulfills completion in a dreamy guess.Now Time grants night the more and day the less:The gray decides; and brownDim golds and drabs in dulling green expressThemselves and redden as the year goes down.Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary highTheir tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie.--Deepening with tenderness,Sadder the blue of hills that lounge alongThe lonesome west; sadder the songOf the wild redbird in the leafage yellow.--Deeper and dreamier, aye!Than woods or waters, leans the languid skyAbove lone orchards where the cider pressDrips and the russets mellow.Nature grows liberal: from the beechen leavesThe beech-nuts' burrs their little purses thrust,Plump with the copper of the nuts that rust;Above the grass the spendthrift spider weavesA web of silver for which dawn designsThrice twenty rows of pearls: beneath the oak,That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines,--The polished acorns, from their saucers broke,Strew oval agates.--On sonorous pinesThe far wind organs; but the forest nearIs silent; and the blue-white smokeOf burning brush, beyond that field of hay,Hangs like a pillar in the atmosphere:But now it shakes--it breaks, and all the vinesAnd tree tops tremble; see! the wind is here!Billowing and boisterous; and the smiling dayRejoices in its clamor. Earth and skyResound with glory of its majesty,Impetuous splendor of its rushing by.--But on those heights the woodland dark is still,Expectant of its coming.... Far awayEach anxious tree upon each waiting hillTingles anticipation, as in graySurmise of rapture. Now the first gusts play,Like laughter low, about their rippling spines;And now the wildwood, one exultant sway,Shouts--and the light at each tumultuous pause,The light that glooms and shines,Seems hands in wild applause.

How glows that garden!--Though the white mists keepThe vagabonding flowers reminded ofDecay that comes to slay in open love,When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep;Unheeding still their cardinal colors leapGay in the crescent of the blade of death,--Spaced innocents whom he prepares to reap,--Staying his scythe a breathTo mark their beauty ere, with one last sweep,He lays them dead and turns away to weep.--Let me admire,--Before the sickle of the coming coldShall mow them down,--their beauties manifold:How like to spurts of fireThat scarlet salvia lifts its blooms, which heapWith flame the sunlight. And, as sparkles creepThrough charring vellum, up that window's screenThe cypress dots with crimson all its green,The haunt of many bees.Cascading dark old porch-built lattices,The nightshade bleeds with berries; drops of bloodHanging in clusters 'mid the blue monk's-hood.

There is a garden old,Where bright-hued clumps of zinnias unfoldTheir formal flowers; where the marigoldLifts a pinched shred of orange sunset caughtAnd elfed in petals; the nasturtium,Deep, pungent-leaved and acrid of perfume,Hangs up a goblin bonnet, pixy-broughtFrom Gnomeland. There, predominant red,And arrogant, the dahlia lifts its head,Beside the balsam's rose-stained horns of honey,Lost in the murmuring, sunnyDry wildness of the weedy flower bed;Where crickets and the weed-bugs, noon and night,Shrill dirges for the flowers that soon shall die,And flowers already dead.--I seem to hear the passing Summer sigh:A voice, that seems to weep,--"Too soon, too soon the Beautiful passes by!And soon, among these bowersWill dripping Autumn mourn with all her flowers"--

If I, perchance, might peepBeneath those leaves of podded hollyhocks,That the bland wind with odorous murmurs rocks,I might behold her,--whiteAnd weary,--Summer, 'mid her flowers asleep,Her drowsy flowers asleep,The withered poppies knotted in her locks.