Classic Poem

The frost is out amid our open fields,
And late within the woods I marked his track;
The unwary flower his icy fingers feels,
And at their touch the crisped leaf rolls back.
Look, how the maple, o'er a sea of green,
Waves in the autumnal wind its flag of red!
First struck of all the forest's spreading screen,
Most beauteous, too, thou earliest of her dead!
Go on; thy task is kindly meant by him,
Whose is each flower, and richly covered bough;
And though the leaves hang dead on every limb,
Still will I praise his love; that early now
Has sent before this herald of decay,
To bid me heed the approach of winter's sterner day.