Classic Poem

The cruel frost has left no bloom alive,
But playful Nature seems to try how fair
Her skill can make the wood
Without the help of flowers.

And so she pranks the leaves with hues as bright
As any that the summer blossoms wore;
The sumac's robes are dyed
With brilliant red and gold.

The maple glows with every varying tint
Of scarlet, luminous yellow, unchanged green,
And myriad shadings, born
Of all these mingled hues.

The regal oak puts on its bravest dress,
Purple and crimson; while the humbler beech,
In pallid russet, dreads
The next dishevelling breeze.

Timid and terrified, the poplar stands,
Shivering in thinnest yellow, though the leaves
Of other trees are still,
And all the winds at rest.

The sunshine, melting through the gorgeous roof,
Fills all the wood with strange, unwonted light,
And makes the atmosphere
A bath of liquid gold,

Wherein all turbulent thoughts, discordant sounds,
And dissonant voices seem dissolved away
Into a perfect peace,
A truce from all the world.

How silent! there is not a sound to break
The utter quiet of the autumn noon,
Save when an acorn drops
Upon the crisp dead leaves.

Or suddenly a prickly chestnut-burr,
Scorning to wait for the compelling wind,
Falls, and rebounds again,
Scattering its treasures wide.

A squirrel, frisking in the thinning boughs,
Flings down a half-shelled nut before my feet,
And chattering noisily,
Disputes the intruder's right,

Or, in the shadow of his plumy tail,
Stands motionless, and silent as a leaf.
Peering with wild bright eyes,
Curious, yet half afraid,

Then, swift and nimble, scampers up aloft,
Surefooted sailor of the sea of leaves,
Fearless of dizzy heights
And heaving depths below.

Hark! from afar a faint, unanswered call!
The lonesome cry of some belated bird,
Left by his emigrant tribe
To meet the frost alone;

And like a dirge for all the insect lives
Which made the wood of late so voluble,
The last faint katydid
Rasps feebly in the fern.

Yonder a leaf-brown rabbit from the brake
Leaps, and is lost amid his kindred hues;
The sudden rustle dies;
And all is still again.