Grey Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest,
   And, behold, for repayment,
September comes in with the wind of the West
   And the Spring in her raiment!
The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers,
   While the forest discovers
Wild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours,
   And the music of lovers.

September, the maid with the swift, silver feet!
   She glides, and she graces
The valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat,
   With her blossomy traces;
Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose,
   She lightens and lingers
In spots where the harp of the evening glows,
   Attuned by her fingers.

The stream from its home in the hollow hill slips
   In a darling old fashion;
And the day goeth down with a song on its lips
   Whose key-note is passion;
Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the sea
   I stand, and remember
Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee,
   Resplendent September.

The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon
   And beats on the beaches,
Is filled with a tender and tremulous tune
   That touches and teaches;
The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time,
   And the death of Devotion,
Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme
   In the waves of the ocean.

We, having a secret to others unknown,
   In the cool mountain-mosses,
May whisper together, September, alone
   Of our loves and our losses.
One word for her beauty, and one for the grace
   She gave to the hours;
And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face
   To sleep with the flowers.

Oh, season of changes -- of shadow and shine --
   September the splendid!
My song hath no music to mingle with thine,
   And its burden is ended;
But thou, being born of the winds and the sun,
   By mountain, by river,
Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run,
   With thy voices for ever.