Now overhead,
Where the rivulet loiters and stops,
The bittersweet hangs from the
Of the alders and
Its bunches of beautiful berries,
Orange and red.
And the snowbirds flee,
Tossing up on the far brown field,
Now flashing and now concealed,
Like fringes of
That vanish and gleam on the
Field of the sea.
Flickering light,
Come the last of the leaves down borne,
And patches of pale white
In the wind complain,
Like the slow rustle of
Noticed by night.
Withered and thinned,
The sentinel mullein looms,
With the pale gray shadowy
Of the goldenrod;
And the milkweed opens its pod,
Tempting the wind.
Aloft on the hill,
A cloudrift opens and
Through a break in its gorget of pines,
And it dreams at my
In a sad, silvery sheet,
Utterly still.
All things that
Seem plunged into silence, distraught,
By some stern, some necessitous thought:
It wraps and
Marsh, meadow, and forest; and
Also on me.
