Classic Poem

Crimson the leaves of the maples had grown,
Earth in a purple pall was sleeping,
The South wind came with a stifled moan
Into the open casement creeping;

From stagnant pools in the slumbering hills
The brook flowed languidly to the ocean,
And the tired wheels of the labouring mills
Were roused to only a feeble motion.

Home from the fields the reapers came,
Late-gleaned sheaves of the harvest bringing,
Deep in the forest, still aflame,
The last of the summer birds were singing;

Grapes on the vine and glistening corn
With asters and golden-rod were vying,—
Alas that the year so blithely born
Should now in autumn's arms be dying!

The death of the year, and otherwhere
Death had fallen with loud lamenting,
There were spirits voicing strange despair,
There were some in silent grief-shades tenting.

Gone, could it be, from the face of the sun!
She who had reared strong lives and spoken
Words that had given men power to run
The roads of the world, so steep and broken.

Gone, could it be! and summer still
Rich in her veins and gold yet glinting
From her beautiful brow, so smooth until
Suddenly pain made cruel minting.

O the agony of the parting,
When the child in fear beholds his mother
Torn from the life she loves and starting,
Through what strange gates God knows, on another;

In difficult roads, perchance, to falter,
Weak for the want of the old sustaining,
Sick for the dear domestic altar
Whereon love burned, a torch unwaning.

With the crimsoning maples this had come,
Night had fallen on her noonday glory,
And common pity's lips grew dumb
Nor stammered out: “A time-worn story!”

The mourners lay 'neath a wintry sky
And saw from the frosty welkin's lashes
Tears fall fast, though their own were dry
As the fiery orb's when it flames and flashes.

But there dawned at last a sweet new day,
When over the hill tops hope came bursting
Into the hearts so cold and gray,
Into the souls for comfort thirsting;

Out of the silence wave-like swept
A stream of faith and strong believing,
And the mourners, prostrate, upward leapt
And drank it in, and ceased their grieving.

Crimson the leaves of the maples had grown,
The vines with the purple fields were vying,
Purple and crimson flowers were strown
On the fresh-made grave where her form was lying

And crimson and purple blending there
Became such glory as covers heaven
When the sun, at rest in his palace fair,
To the sky his royal robes has given.

Crimson the petals of hope had grown,
A purple pall o'er faith was lying,—
But suddenly doubt was overthrown
And the mourners knew there was no dying.