The Autumn gales are blowing,
And wrecks bestrew the shore;
The angry ocean rages
With loud and wild uproar.
Furious billows leeward
The doomèd vessels bore;
Their prey the foaming breakers
To fragments madly tore.
The Autumn winds are singing
The death-song of the leaves;
Shrill piping, as they winnow
The shocks of golden sheaves.
Soft singing to the reaper,
Who loves to hear the song,
And bares his dewy forehead,
A they singing skim along.
The Autumn breeze is hushing
To sleep the fading flowers;
Breathing on the falling leaves
And through the rifled bowers;
Murmuring through the woodlands,
And sighing in the pines;
Light rippling on the streamlet
In broken, wavy lines.
On a couch of fallen leaves-
The golden and the brown-
While the breezes fan my brow,
There I would lay me down.
Alone with God and nature,
'Midst emblems of decay;
'Neath the calm Autumnal sky
I'd breathe my life away.