It is the evening of a pleasant day,
In these old woods. The sun profusely flings
His golden light through every- narrow way
That winds among the trees: His spirit clings
In orange mist around the snowy wings
Of many a patient cloud that now, since noon,
Over the western mountain idly swings,
Waiting, when night-shades come, alas! too soon,
To veil the timid blushes of the virgin moon.

The trees with crimson robes are garmented,
Clad with frail brilliance by the wrinkling frost;
For the young leaves that Spring with beauty fed,
Their greenness and luxuriance have lost,
Gaining new beauty at too dear a cost,—
Unnatural beauty, essence of decay.
Too soon, upon the harsh winds wildly tossed,
Leaving the naked trees ghost-like and gray,
These leaf-flocks, like vain hopes, will vanish quite away.

How does your sad, yet calm, contented guise,
Ye melancholy autumn solitudes!
With my own feelings softly harmonize;
For though I love the hoar and solemn woods,
In all their manifold and changing moods,
In gloom and sunshine, storm and quietness,
By day, and when the dim night on them broods,
Their lightsome glades, their deep, dark mysteries,
Yet a sad heart best loves a still, calm scene like this.

Soon will the year, like this sweet day, have fled
With swift feet speeding noiselessly and fast,
As a ghost speeds to join its kindred dead,
In the dark realms of that mysterious Vast,
The shadow-peopled, vague and infinite PAST.
Life's current downward flows, a rapid stream,
With clouds and shadows often overcast,
Yet lighted by full many a sunny beam,
Of happiness, like sweet thoughts in a gloomy dream.

Like the brown leaves our loved ones drop away,
One after one, into the dark abyss
Of sleep and death; the frosts of trouble lay
Their withering touch upon our happiness,
Even as the hoar-frosts of the Autumn kiss
The green life from the unoffending leaves;
And Love, and Hope, and Youth's warm cheerfulness,
Flit from the heart;—Age lonely sits and grieves,
Or sadly smiles, while Youth his day - dream fondly weaves.

Day draweth to its close: Night cometh on:
Death, a dim shape, stands on Life's western verge,
Casting his shadow on the startled sun,
A deeper gloom that seemeth to emerge
From endless night. Forward he bends, to urge
His eyeless steeds, fleet as the tempest's blast;
Hark! hear we not Eternity's grave surge,
Thundering anear? At the dread sound aghast,
Time, pale with frantic terror, hurries headlong past.