A Still Day in Autumn

Sarah Helen Power Whitman (1803–1878)

I LOVE to wander through the woodlands hoary

In the soft light of an autumnal day,

When Summer gathers up her robes of glory,

And like a dream of beauty glides away.

How through each loved, familiar path she lingers,

Serenely smiling through the golden mist,

Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers

Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst;

Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining

To light the gloom of Autumn’s mouldering halls,

With hoary plumes the clematis entwining

Where o’er the rock her withered garland falls.

Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning

Beneath soft clouds along the horizon rolled,

Till the slant sunbeams through their fringes raining

Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold.

The moist winds breathe of crispèd leaves and flowers

In the damp hollows of the woodland sown,

Mingling the freshness of autumnal showers

With spicy airs from cedarn alleys blown.

Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow,

Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground,

With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow

The gentian nods, in dewy slumbers bound.

Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits brooding,

Like a fond lover loath to say farewell,

Or with shut wings, through silken folds intruding,

Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to tell.

The little birds upon the hillside lonely

Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray,

Silent as a sweet wandering thought that only

Shows its bright wings and softly glides away.