Behold! the shadows of the trees Now circle wider 'bout their stem, Like sentries that by slow degrees Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.
And as the year doth decline, The sun allows a scantier light; Behind each needle of the pine There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.
I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay Around, beneath me, and on high; It rocks the night, it soothes the day, And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.
But most he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of Autumn o'er the Summer spread.
Small birds, in fleets migrating by, Now beat across some meadow's bay, And as they tack and veer on high, With faint and hurried click beguile the way.
Far in the woods, these golden days, Some leaf obeys its Maker's call; And through their hollow aisles it plays With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.
Gently withdrawing from its stem, It lightly lays itself along Where the same hand hath pillowed them, Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.
The loneliest birch is brown and sere, The furthest pool is strewn with leaves, Which float upon their watery bier, Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.
The jay screams through the chestnut wood; The crisped and yellow leaves around Are hue and texture of my mood,-- And these rough burrs my heirlooms on the ground.
The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,-- They are no wealthier than I; But with as brave a core within They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait The charge of Winter's cavalry, Keeping a simple Roman state, Discumbered of their Persian luxury.
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.