Classic Poem

FROM THE " AUTUMN RAIN. "

Remember these — the words of one who nears
The silent cataract — the deep and final plunge —
Whose eyes are gifted with prophetic light, who hears
The mystic waves, which roar
Against the untried shore:
Expect not satisfaction for thy spirit here,
For this will not be found;
Heed not the empty sound
Which seems like fame, but to the vulgar ear.

Hold cheap the acclamation of the crowd:
Note, thou, the few whose souls rise, god-like, from the ground;
Be not the glamour of high-place, or wealth, allowed
To drag thy soul aside;
Have in thy heart that pride
Which turns not from the weak nor seeks the great;
Use life, but as the course
Where in thy well-spent force
May win for thee a higher — better state.

*****

Turn, often, in thy way, with pondering heart,
To Nature's wild and mingled harmonies, alone:
The pleasing melancholy which her moods impart,
Can soothe the wearied frame
And with diviner flame
Light up the waning faculties of thought.
There, finds the mind its balm,
The soul her restful calm —
There, hearts are led to worship as they ought.

This is the autumn rain, and yet, this air
Might be the breath from fields kissed by the moist-lipped Spring,
So softly, it doth blow: — in spots so green and fair
The drenched hill-sides appear;
As though they thought to cheer
Sweet Nature's heart in this her waning day.
The muddy streamlets show
No sorrow as they flow —
And yet — they sweep the summer's leaves away.

In patient rows now stands the gathered corn:
The smoking cattle linger near the clustering stacks
Which give forth still the smell of meadows long since shorn.
The thicket grows more gray
And bristling day by day:
But in all this there breathes the soul of hope.
We feel the sleeping strength
Which will burst forth at length
From each brown field, from every faded slope.

'Tis man, not Nature, who grows sick and sad,
Who, in his sowing-time, or harvest, drops his leaf,
And when the green, in which his summer life is clad,
Untimely smitten down.
Once turns to dusky brown.
He buds no more with the returning sun.
A thousand years may shed,
Their rains upon his bed,
But he is silent — still, — his day is done.