To the Autumn Forest

Resplendent hues are thine!
Triumphant beauty — glorious as brief!
Burdening with holy love the heart's pure shrine,
Till tears afford relief.

What though thy depths be hush'd!
More eloquent in breathless silence thou,
Than when the music of glad songsters gush'd
From every green-robed bough.

Gone from thy walks the flowers!
Thou askest not their forms thy paths to fleck; —
The dazzling radiance of these sunlit bowers
Their hues could not bedeck.

I love thee in the spring,
Earth-crowning forest! when amid thy shades
The gentle south first waves her odorous wing,
And joy fills all thy glades.

In the hot summer-time,
With deep delight thy sombre aisles I roam,
Or, soothed by some cool brook's melodious chime,
Rest on thy verdant loam.

But, O, when autumn's hand
Hath mark'd thy beauteous foliage for the grave,
How doth thy splendour, as entranced I stand,
My willing heart enslave!

I linger then with thee,
Like some fond lover o'er his stricken bride;
Whose bright, unearthly beauty tells that she
Here may not long abide.

When my last hours are come,
Great God! ere yet life's span shall all be fill'd,
And these warm lips in death be ever dumb,
This beating heart be still'd, —

Bathe thou in hues as blest —
Let gleams of Heaven about my spirit play!
So shall my soul to its eternal rest
In glory pass away!