To the Autumn Leaf

Thou faded leaf! it seems to be
But as of yesterday,
When thou didst flourish on the tree
In all the pride of May:
Then t 'was the merry hour of spring,
Of nature's fairest blossoming,
On field, on flower, and spray;
It promised fair; how changed the scene
To what is now, from what hath been!
So fares it with life's early spring;
Hope gilds each coming day.
And sweetly doth the syren sing
Her fond, delusive lay:
Then the young, fervent heart beats high,
While passion kindles in the eye,
With bright, unceasing play;
Fair are thy tints, thou genial hour,
Yet transient as the autumn flower.
Thou faded leaf! how like to thee
Is beauty in her morning pride,
When life is but a summer sea,
And hope illumes its placid tide:
Alas! for beauty's autumn hour,
Alas! for beauty's blighted flower,
When hope and bliss have died!
Her pallid brow, her cheek of grief,
Have thy sad hue, thou faded leaf!
Autumnal leaf! thus honour's plume,
And valour's laurel wreath must fade;
Must lose the freshness, and the bloom
On which the beam of glory play'd;
The banner waving o'er the crowd,
Far streaming like a silver cloud,
Must sink within the shade,
Where dark oblivion's waters flow
O'er human weal and human wo.
Autumnal leaf! there is a stern
And warning tone in thy decay;
Like thee must man to death return
With his frail tenement of clay:
Thy warning is of death and doom,
Of genius blighted in its bloom,
Of joy's beclouded ray;
Life, rapture, hope, ye are as brief
And fleeting as the autumn leaf!