To the Night-Wind in Autumn

Whence art thou, spirit wind —
Soothing with thy low voice the ear of Night,
And breathing o'er the wakeful, pensive mind
An influence of pleased yet sad delight?
Thou tell'st not of thy birth,
O viewless wanderer from land to land:
But, gathering all the secrets of the earth,
Where'er, unseen, thy airy wings expand,
At this hushed, holy hour,
When time seems part of vast eternity,
Thou dost reveal them with a magic power,
Saddening the soul with thy weird minstrelsy.
All nature seems to hear —
The woods, the waters, and each silent star;
What, that can thus enchain their earnest ear,
Bring'st thou of untold tidings from afar?
Is it of new, fair lands,
Of fresh-lit worlds that in the welkin burn?
Do new oases gem Zahara's sands,
Or the lost Pleiads to the skies return?
Nay! 't is a voice of grief,
Of grief subdued, but deepened through long years,
The soul of Sorrow, seeking not relief —
Still gathering bitter knowledge without tears.
For thou, since earth was young,
And rose green Eden, purpled with the morn,
Its solemn wastes, and homes of men among,
Circling all zones, thy mourning flight hast borne.
Empires have risen, in might,
And peopled cities through the outspread earth,
And thou hast passed them at the hour of night,
Hearing their sounds of revelry and mirth.
Again thou hast gone by —
City and empire were alike o'erthrown,
Temple and palace, fallen confusedly,
In marble ruin on the desert strown.
In time-long solitudes,
Grand gray old mountains pierced the silent air,
Fair rivers roll' d, and stretch'd untravers'd woods:
'T was joy to hope that they were changeless there.
Lo! as the ages passed,
Thou found'st them struck with alteration dire,
The streams new channel'd, forests headlong cast,
The crumbling mountains scathed with storm and fire.
Gone but a few short hours, —
Beauty and bloom beguiled thy wanderings,
And thou mad'st love unto the virgin flowers,
Sighing through green trees and by mossy springs.
Now, on the earth's cold bed,
Fallen and faded, waste their forms away,
And all around the withered leaves are shed,
Mementos mute of Nature's wide decay.
Vain is the breath of morn;
Vainly the night-dews on their couches weep;
In vain thou call'st them at thy soft return —
No more awaking from their gloomy sleep....
Oh, hush! oh, hush! sweet wind!
Thou melancholy soul, be still, I pray,
Nor pierce this heart, so long to grief resigned,
With plainings for the loved but lifeless clay!
Ah! now by thee I hear
The earnest, gentle voices, as of old;
They speak in accents tremulously clear —
The young, the beautiful, the noble souled.
The beautiful, the young,
The form of light, the wise, the honored head —
Thou bring'st the music of a lyre unstrung! —
Oh cease! with tears I ask it — they are dead....
While mortal joys depart,
While loved ones lie beneath the grave's green sod,
May we not fail to hear, with trembling heart,
In thy low tone the « still small voice of God."