Classic Poem

TOR. E. B.

The October day was dying, the dark sea
Flushed crimson at the coming of the sun;
The ripened year lay drowsing on the lea,
Like a tired reaper when his task is done.

Slowly we loitered o'er the twilight wold,
Through velvet sheep-walks, and where reedy plumes
And nodding fern tufts, tipt with tawny gold,
Fringe the dank borders where the gentian blooms.

The very crickets seemed to drone and dream,
As if they felt the sweet mysterious charm
Of the hushed evening, and attuned their theme
To its low cadences of slumberous calm.

With scarlet hips and sprays of purpling leaves
The brier-rose in the bosky thickets burned,
The maples flamed beneath the forest eaves,
And their cold gloom to sudden splendor turned.

The level sunbeams glinted through the trees
And flecked with arrowy light their verdant mold,
And bound red baldricks round their gnarled knees,
And fringed the tufted knolls with raveled gold.

Our woodland path was dim with tender dreams
Of the past summer, and a pensive gloom,
Lit by the rosy sunset's dying gleams,
Filled the long arches of our sylvan room:

Sweet haunting memories of our golden noons,
Our twilight wanderings by the lonely shore,
Our August mornings, our September noons,
Our long, sweet, summer days that are no more.

We sat together by the sunset sea,
Screened from its solemn splendors by a wall
Of beech and oak and many a tangled tree
Of the witch-elms that over-roofed our hall.

It was your birthnight, and close-clasped in mine
I held your hand, and blessed the imperial hour
That sheathed your spirit in a mortal shrine,
And gave to bloom on earth a thornless flower.