LITMIR.BIZ

      Nature grows liberal: from the beechen leaves

      The beech-nuts’ burrs their little pockets thrust,

      Bulged with the copper of the nuts that rust;

      Above the grass the spendthrift spider weaves

      A web of silver for which dawn designs

      Thrice 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 pines

      The far wind organs; but the forest near

      Is silent; and the blue-white smoke

      Of burning brush, beyond that field of hay,

      Hangs like a pillar in the atmosphere;

      But now it shakes—it breaks and all the

      vines And tree-tops tremble;—see! the wind is here!

      Billowing and boisterous; and the smiling day

      Rejoices in its clamor. Earth and sky

      Resound with glory of its majesty,

      Impetuous splendor of its rushing by.—

      But on those heights the forest still is still,

      Expectant of its coming.... Far away

      Each anxious tree upon each waiting hill

      Tingles anticipation, as in gray

      Surmise 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 keep

      The vagabonding flowers reminded of

      Decay that comes to slay in open love,

      When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep;

      Unheeding still, their cardinal colors leap

      And laugh encircled of the scythe of death,—

      Like lovely children he prepares to reap,—

      Staying his blade a breath

      To 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 cold

      Shall mow them down,—their beauties manifold:

      How like to spurts of fire

      That scarlet salvia lifts its blooms, which heap

      Yon square of sunlight. And, as sparkles creep

      Through charring parchment, up that window’s screen

      The cypress dots with crimson all its green,

      The haunt of many bees.

      Cascading dark those porch-built lattices,

      The nightshade bleeds with berries; drops of blood,

      Hanging in clusters, ’mid the blue monk’s-hood.

      There, in that garden old,

      The bright-hued clumps of zinnias unfold

      Their formal flowers; and the marigold

      Lifts its pinched shred of orange sunset caught

      And elfed in petals. The nasturtium,

      All pungent leaved and acrid of perfume,

      Hangs up its goblin bonnet, fairy-brought

      From Gnomeland. There, predominant red,

      And arrogant, the dahlia lifts its head,

      Beside the balsam’s rose-stained horns of honey,

      Deep in the murmuring, sunny,

      Dry wildness of the weedy flower-bed;

      Where crickets and the weed-bugs, noon and night,

      Shrill dirges for the flowers that soon will 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, amid her bowers,

      Will dripping Autumn mourn with all her flowers.”—

      If I, perchance, might peep

      Beneath those leaves of podded hollyhocks,

      That the bland wind with odorous whispers rocks,

      I might behold her,—white

      And weary,—Summer, ’mid her flowers asleep,

      Her drowsy flowers asleep,

      The withered poppies knotted in her locks.