Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/110

 With a fine piping noise,

As if some younger singing motes cried out,

As do mischievous boys,

Startling their playmates with a pained voice,

Or sudden thrilling shout,

Followed by laughter, full of little joys.

Perchance a lurking breeze

Springs, just awakened to its wayward play,

Tossing the sober trees

Into a frolic maze of ecstacies,

And snatching at the gay

Banners of Autumn, strews them where it please.

The sunset colors glow

A second time in flame from out wood,

As bright and warm as though

The vanished clouds had fallen, and lodged below

Among the treetops, hued

With all the colors of heaven's signal-bow.

The fitful breezes die

Into a gentle whisper, and then sleep;

And sweetly, mournfully,

Starting to sight, in the transparent sky,

Lone in the upper deep,

Sad Hesper pours its beams upon the eye;

And for one little hour,

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