Indian Summer

A soft veil dims the tender skies,

And half conceals from pensive eyes The bronzing tokens of the fall;

A calmness broods upon the hills,

And summer's parting dream distills A charm of silence over all.

The stacks of corn, in brown array,

Stand waiting through the placid day,

Like tattered wigwams on the plain;

The tribes that find a shelter

Are phantom peoples, forms of air,

And ghosts of vanished joy and pain.

At evening when the crimson

Of sunset passes down the West,

I hear the whispering host returning;

On far-off fields, by elm and oak,

I see the lights,

I smell the smoke,— The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.