Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/101

Rh Now where the autumn leaves lie on the ground,

And the dark river flows with a sullen sound,

And the white cloud of mist rises up from the gloom

Like the ghost that I laid bursting out of its tomb,

Come I each twilight and pillow my head

On the dark withered leaves—the grave of the dead,

And list to the murmur of leaves and of river,

Praying sleep may descend on my eyelids forever.

INDIAN SUMMER.

me, ye whose locks are whiter

Than the frozen winter snow,

Tell me if your hearts grew lighter,

And your hopes of heaven brighter,

As the beat of life grew slow;

Is there, say, an Indian summer

After life's autumnal glow?

Gentle youth, and ardent manhood,

Spring and summer emblem well;

Ripened fields and fading greenwood,

Withered blossoms, pale and wind-strewed,

Of life's wasting fullness tell;

And the bleak and barren winter

Has in age its parallel.

But when all the freshness faded

And the wintry cold was near,

When the locks that once had shaded

Youthful brows, with gray were braided,

Were your spirits cold and drear?

Or came there a mellow brightness

Warming life's dull atmosphere?