[p. 60]
No more in vibrant, fragile grace, in beauty frail and fair,
The pendant harebell rings its note of music on the air;
The gentian doth its blue-fringed lids o'er its deep casket close
No longer, as it were to hide some treasure from its foes;
No more do constancy's bright flowers, in some secluded spot,
Lift up their eyes of Heaven's own blue, and breathe ‘Forget me not.’
The crickets, in their dusky robes, around their humble bed
Are piping melancholy dirge for Autumn's children dead.
How lonely and how desolate appears sad Nature's face!
Where—as gray age is often seen in rosy youth's embrace—
The ivy 'round the hoar old trees their blushing beauty flung,
And round their rough and knotted arms their scarlet festoons hung;
Where the barberry's coral clusters gleamed, and where the sumac showed
Its gorgeous velvet cones, that 'mid its leaves, wild fires glowed;
Where the vine its purple treasures hung; where lithe birch tree was seen
In its silver coat, and the elm tree in its leafy dress of green;
Now all is sadly desolate; and where was softly shed
O'er hill and dale a rose-hued haze, a tear-like mist is spread.
The sorrowing skies weep oa er the earth, as o'er a blighted child,
And Autumn like a Niobe, with wailing voice, and wild,
With voice of grief and fitful tears, laments her darlings fled,—
Her bright and beauteous children, faded, numbered with the dead.
But faith a glorious promise weaves that from this rustling dust,
His hand who crushed the Autumn leaves has drawn a sacred trust;
A trust that lives forever-aye, a trust of life divine
That yet shall bid the springtide bowers with vernal radiance shine!
So, when in Time's drear autumn we bend in sad'ning prayer
And all the cherished hopes of years strew Grief's bleak hillside bare,
Our Father's hand hath only ta'en the key of joy's attune
Which he shall give us back again in Heaven's eternal June!
No more in vibrant, fragile grace, in beauty frail and fair,
The pendant harebell rings its note of music on the air;
The gentian doth its blue-fringed lids o'er its deep casket close
No longer, as it were to hide some treasure from its foes;
No more do constancy's bright flowers, in some secluded spot,
Lift up their eyes of Heaven's own blue, and breathe ‘Forget me not.’
The crickets, in their dusky robes, around their humble bed
Are piping melancholy dirge for Autumn's children dead.
How lonely and how desolate appears sad Nature's face!
Where—as gray age is often seen in rosy youth's embrace—
The ivy 'round the hoar old trees their blushing beauty flung,
And round their rough and knotted arms their scarlet festoons hung;
Where the barberry's coral clusters gleamed, and where the sumac showed
Its gorgeous velvet cones, that 'mid its leaves, wild fires glowed;
Where the vine its purple treasures hung; where lithe birch tree was seen
In its silver coat, and the elm tree in its leafy dress of green;
Now all is sadly desolate; and where was softly shed
O'er hill and dale a rose-hued haze, a tear-like mist is spread.
The sorrowing skies weep oa er the earth, as o'er a blighted child,
And Autumn like a Niobe, with wailing voice, and wild,
With voice of grief and fitful tears, laments her darlings fled,—
Her bright and beauteous children, faded, numbered with the dead.
But faith a glorious promise weaves that from this rustling dust,
His hand who crushed the Autumn leaves has drawn a sacred trust;
A trust that lives forever-aye, a trust of life divine
That yet shall bid the springtide bowers with vernal radiance shine!
So, when in Time's drear autumn we bend in sad'ning prayer
And all the cherished hopes of years strew Grief's bleak hillside bare,
Our Father's hand hath only ta'en the key of joy's attune
Which he shall give us back again in Heaven's eternal June!
