Classic Poem

S UMMER has gone!
And fruitful autumn has advanced so far,
That there is warmth not heat in the broad sun,
And you may look with steadfast gaze upon
The ardours of his car;
The stealthy frosts, whom his spent looks embolden,
Are making the green leaves golden.

What a brave splendour
Is in the October air! How rich and clear —
How life-full, and all joyous! We must render
Love to the Spring-time, with its sproutings tender,
As to a child quite dear —
But autumn is a noon, prolonged, of glory —
A manhood not yet hoary.

I love the woods
In this best season of the liberal year;
I love to haunt their whispering solitudes,
And give myself to melancholy moods,
With no intruder near;
And find strange lessons, as I sit and ponder,
In every natural wonder.

But not alone
As Shakspeare's melancholy courtier loved Ardennes,
Love I the autumn forest; and I own
I would not oft have mused as he, but flown
To hunt with Amiens —
And little recked, as up the bold deer bounded,
Of the sad creature wounded.

That gentle knight,
Sir William Wortley, weary of his part,
In painted pomps, which he could read aright,
Built Warncliffe lodge — for that he did delight
To hear the belling hart.
It was a gentle taste, but its sweet sadness
Yields to the hunter's madness.
What passionate
And wild delight is in the proud swift chase!
Go out what time the lark, at heaven's red gate,
Soars joyously singing — quite infuriate
With the high pride of his place;
What time the unrisen sun arrays the morning
In its first bright adorning.

Hark the shrill horn —
As sweet to hear as any clarion —
Piercing with silver call the ear of morn;
And mark the steeds, stout Curtal, and Topthorn,
And Greysteil, and the Don —
Each one of them his fiery mood displaying
With pawing and with neighing.

Urge your swift horse
After the crying hounds in this fresh hour —
Vanquish high hills — stem perilous streams perforce —
Where the glades ope give free wings to your course-
And you will know the power
Of the brave chase — and how of griefs, the sorest,
A cure is in the forest.

Or stalk the deer:
The same red fires of dawn illume the hills,
The gladdest sounds are crowding on your ear,
There is a life in all the atmosphere; —
Your very nature fills
With the fresh hour, as up the hills aspiring,
You climb with limbs untiring.

It is a fair
And pleasant sight, to see the mountain stag,
With the long sweep of his swift walk, repair
To join his brothers; or the plethoric bear
Lying on some high crag,
With pinky eyes half closed, but broad head shaking,
As gad-flies keep him waking.

And these you see,
And, seeing them, you travel to their death,
With a slow stealthy step from tree to tree —
Noting the wind, however faint it be;
The hunter draws a breath
In times like these, which he will say repays him
For all the care that waylays him.

A strong joy fills —
A rapture far beyond the tongue's cold power —
My heart in golden autumn: fills and thrills!
And I would rather stalk the breezy hills —
Descending to my bower
Nightly by the bold spirit of health attended —
Than pine where life is splendid.