You love the sun and the languid breeze
That gently kisses the rosebud's lips,
And delight to see
How the dainty bee,
Stilling his gauze-winged melodies
Into the lily's chalice dips.

I love the wind that unceasing roars,
While cringe the trees from its wrath in vain,
And the lightning-flash,
And the thunder-crash,
And skies, from whose Erebus depths outpours
In slanting drifts the autumnal rain.

You sigh to find that the time is here
When leaves are falling from bush and tree;
When the flowerets sweet
Die beneath our feet,
And feebly totters the dying year
Into the mists of eternity.

To me the autumn is never drear,
It bears the glory of hopes fulfilled.
Though the flowers be dead,
There are seeds instead,
That, with the spring of the dawning year,
With life will find all their being thrilled.

You tread the wood, and the wind behold
Tear down the leaves from the crackling bough
Till they make a pall,
As they thickly fall,
To hide dead flowers. The air seems cold,
No summer gladdens the forest now.

HOPE AND DESPAIR
I tread the maze of the changing wood,
And though no light through the maples plays,
Yet they glow each one,
Like a rose-red sun,
And drop their leaves, like a glittering flood
Of warm sunbeams, in the woodland ways.

Poor human heart, in the year of life
All seasons are, and it rests with thee
To enjoy them all,
Or to drape a pall
O'er withered hopes, and to be at strife
With things that are, and no brightness see.