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| HOW soothing sound the gentle airs that move | |
| The innumerable leaves, high overhead, | |
| When autumn first, from the long avenue | |
| That lifts its arching height of ancient shade, | |
Steals here and there a leaf!
Within the gloom, | 5 |
| In partial sunshine white, some trunks appear | |
| Studding the glens of fern; in solemn shade | |
| Some mingle their dark branches, but yet all, | |
| All make a sad, sweet music, as they move, | |
| Not undelightful to a stranger’s heart. | 10 |
| They seem to say, in accents audible, | |
| Farewell to summer, and farewell the strains | |
| Of many a lithe and feathered chorister, | |
| That through the depth of these incumbent woods | |
Made the long summer gladsome.
I have heard | 15 |
| To the deep-mingling sounds of organs clear | |
| (When slow the choral anthem rose beneath) | |
| The glimmering minster through its pillared aisles | |
| Echo; but not more sweet the vaulted roof | |
| Rang to those linkéd harmonies, than here | 20 |
| The high wood answers to the lightest breath | |
Of nature.
O, may such music steal, | |
| Soothing the cares of venerable age, | |
| From public toil retired; may it awake, | |
| As, still and slow, the sun of life declines, | 25 |
| Remembrances, not mournful, but most sweet; | |
| May it, as oft beneath the sylvan shade | |
| Their honored owner strays, come like the sound | |
| Of distant seraph harps, yet speaking clear! | |
| How poor is every sound of earthly things, | 30 |
| When heaven’s own music waits the just and pure! | |
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