Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/373

Rh the fungus broad and red

Lifts its head,

Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread,

Where the aster grew

With the social goldenrod,

In a chapel, which the dew

Made beautiful for God:—

O what would Nature say?

She spared no speech to-day:

The fungus and the bulrush spoke,

Answered the pine-tree and the oak,

The wizard South blew down the glen,

Filled the straits and filled the wide,

Each maple leaf turned up its silver side.

All things shine in his smoky ray,

And all we see are pictures high;

Many a high hillside,

While oaks of pride

Climb to their tops,

And boys run out upon their leafy ropes.

The maple street

In the houseless wood,

Voices followed after,

Every shrub and grape leaf

Rang with fairy laughter.

I have heard them fall

Like the strain of all

King Oberon's minstrelsy.