Ode to the West Wind Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere 1379 III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, iv If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] AUTUMN: A DIRGE THE warm sun is failing; the bleak wind is wailing; The bare boughs are sighing; the pale flowers are dying; And the Year On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May; In your saddest array Follow the bier Of the dead, cold Year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre, "When the Frost is on the Punkin" 1381 The chill rain is falling; the nipped worm is crawling; For the Year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone Come, months, come away; Let your light sisters play- Of the dead, cold Year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] AUTUMN THE morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The maple wears a gayer scarf, I'll put a trinket on. Emily Dickinson [1830-1886] "WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN" WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is hereOf course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! . . . I don't know how to tell it--but ef sich a thing could be me I'd want to 'commodate 'em-all the whole-indurin' flockWhen the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. James Whitcomb Riley [1852-1916] KORE YEA, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves, And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves. Old October Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist, 1383 And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist. With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes, And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep, The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams; And wept, and weep until she come again. Frederic Manning [18 OLD OCTOBER HAIL, old October, bright and chill, Come, friend, my fire is burning bright, How clear it glows! (there's frost to-night,) You've been to "Richard." Ah! you've seen Be mine the tree that feeds the fire! Be mine the sun knows when to set! The sentry sun, that glared so long |