I saw old Autumn in the misty morn

Stand shadowless like Silence, listening

To silence, for no lonely bird would sing

Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,

Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;

Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright

With tangled gossamer that fell by night,

Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer? — With the sun,

Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,

Till shade and silence waken up as one,

And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.

Where are the merry birds? — Away, away,

On panting wings through the inclement skies,

Lest owls should prey

Undazzled at noon-day,

And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer? — In the west,

Blushing their last to the last sunny hours.

When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest

Like tearful Proserpine, snatch’d from her flow’rs

To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer — the green prime —

The many, many leaves all twinkling? — Three

On the moss’d elm; three on the naked lime

Trembling — and one upon the old oak tree!

Where is the Dryad’s immortality? —

Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,

Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through

In the smooth holly’s green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish’d hoa............