Littell's Living Age/Volume 143/Issue 1847/Autumn

The rich autumnal shadows fall; The first brown leaf wheels slowly down; And all along the orchard wall The mosses gather deeper brown.

Through all the rounded golden hours No sound steals in from village street; Alone the chimes from distant towers Float hourly through my still retreat.

Across the vale, the rugged hills Are starting from their summer gloom, And bursting heather glows and fills Their skyward curves with purple bloom.

Again with autumn comes the time When you and I would cross the vale, And reach the mountain foot, and climb Till stars renewed the evening tale.

I wander still where nature haunts Her secret places seldom sought; But even nature something wants — A subtle something, deeply wrought.

And here alone I sit, and now Thy voice is hushed; hut those dear eyes That flashed beneath thy brave boy-brow Are haunting me as daylight dies.

The sun slopes slowly to his rest, This soft September afternoon, Till all the color leaves the west, And steeps the world in twilight gloom.