No more the battle or the chase
The phantom tribes pursue,
But each in its accustomed place
The Autumn hails anew:
And still from solemn councils set
On every hill and plain,
The smoke of many a calumet
Ascends to heaven again.
-
-
From “Irish Melodies”
’T IS the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud, is nigh
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!I ’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are... -
As Sleigh Bells seem in summer
Or Bees, at Christmas show —
So fairy — so fictitious
The individuals do
Repealed from observation —
A Party that we knew —
More distant in an instant
Than Dawn in Timbuctoo. -
As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,
And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved —
So we evade the charge of Years
On...Consulting summer's clock,
But half the hours remain.
I ascertain it with a shock —
I shall not look again.
The second half of joy
Is shorter than the first.
The truth I do not dare to know
I muffle with a jest.Further in Summer than the Birds -
Pathetic from the Grass -
A minor Nation celebrates
It's unobtrusive Mass.
No Ordinance be seen -
So gradual the Grace
A gentle Custom it becomes -
Enlarging Loneliness -
Antiquest felt at Noon -
When August is burning low...Her final Summer was it —
And yet We guessed it not —
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded Her, We thought
A further force of life
Developed from within —
When Death lit all the shortness up
It made the hurry plain —
We wondered at our blindness
When...How know it from a Summer's Day?
Its Fervors are as firm —
And nothing in the Countenance
But scintillates the same —
Yet Birds examine it and flee —
And Vans without a name
Inspect the Admonition
And sunder as they came —I know a place where Summer strives
With such a practised Frost —
She — each year — leads her Daisies back —
Recording briefly — "Lost" —
But when the South Wind stirs the Pools
And struggles in the lanes —
Her Heart misgives Her, for Her Vow —
And she pours soft Refrains
...O sweet, sad autumn of the waning year,
Though in thy bowers the roses all lie dead,
And from thy woods the song of birds has fled,
And winter, stern and cold, is hovering near;
Yet from thy presence breathes a holy calm.
The fervid heats, the...