The Fall of the Leaf

The flush of the landscape is o'er,
The brown leaves are shed on the way,
The dye of the lone mountain flower
Is grown wan, and betokens decay !

The Spring in our valleys is born,
Like the bud that it fostered, to die ;
Like the transient dews of the morn,
Or the vapour that melts in the sky.

Thus youth, with its visions so gay,
Departs like a dream of the mind ;
To pleasure and passion a prey,
It often leaves sorrow behind. —
Its virtues too buoyant to grow,
Its follies too latent to die ;
We shall reap of the seeds we then sow,
When the stars have dissolved in the sky,
Our Summer now flits o'er the main,
And leaves but her mantle behind ;
Short time will that mantle remain
Expelled by the chill winter wind !

All silent the song of the thrush ;
Bewildered she cowers in the dale ;
The black-bird sits sad on the bush ; —
The fall of the leaf they bewail.

Thus I may sit silent and sigh ;
Before me the cold lonely urn ;
My youth and my prime are gone by,
And, alas ! they can never return.

All nature thus tends to decay,
And to drop as the leaves from the tree ;
And man — just the flower of a day,
How long, long his winter will be !

But the grain, late adorning the field,
With its soft heaving billows so pale,
More gain to its owner will yield,
Than if still waving sweet in the vale r
So the breast where firm virtue and reason
Could every wild passion subdue ;
The fall of his leaf is a season
That man may with pleasure review.

At suffering he will not despond,
Nor at death when his sorrows shall cease,
While hope points his eye far beyond
To a mansion of virtue and peace.

Eternity's streamers unfurled,
Time's tear o'er his tottering throne.

The last rending crash of the world,
The sky with its orbs overthrown,
He will view with a soul all serene ;
And will welcome the dawn of the day
Which in glory shall open a scene
Of perfection that cannot decay