DAY after day I travel down
From Billerica to the town;
Day after day, in passing by
A cedar-pasture, gray and high,
See, shining clear and far, (a mile),
The white church-steeple of Carlisle;
And bright between Carlisle and me,
Daily a glowing maple-tree.

Suffused with yellow, every part
Is burning saffron at the heart.
Upwards and warm the colors gain
From ruddy gold to claret-stain;
And downward tending, lightly lean
To citron yellow and cold green.
Day after autumn day it still
More deeply burns against the hill.
And now I 've made of it a type
Of hopes, like mine, near autumn-ripe,
And watch, intent, which first shall be,
The consummation of the tree,
Or that gold harvest-hope prepared for me.